The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1927. THE EGYPTIAN CRISIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 127, 1 June 1927, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1927. THE EGYPTIAN CRISIS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ve can do.

The present crisis in Egypt arises from a bitter conflict that has been in progress ever since the agreement of 1922 came into fortv. Though by that agreement the Egyptians received practically full autonomy for internal purposes, Britain reserved for herself control of Egypt's foreign relations, and retained tho right to organise the Egyptian army, to defend the Sudan, and to protect her interests in the Suez Canal. These reservations have always been denounced by the Nationalists as a permanent sign of servitude, and , though it is easy to prove to any disinterested person that they benefit Egypt equally with Britain, Zaghlul Pasha and his party have declared that they will not rest till these limitations to complete political independence are swept away.

Under the 1022 agreement the Egyptian army consists of about 10,000 men. It is organised and controlled by a British Sirdar, or Commander-in-Chief, and many of the superior officers are British. There are also about 11,000 British troops in Egypt, their presence being necessary to protect the property and lives of British subjects and to defend British interests generally against the violent and criminal tactics frequently employed by the extremists of the Wafd party. It is now proposed by the Nationalists that the army should be exclusively Egyptian, and that the Minister of War alone should be responsible for it; and it is further recommended that the large payment annually voted by the Egyptian Parliament for the administration of the Sudan shall be cancelled. This last proposal, of course, indicates that, in the opinion of Pasha and his friends, the Sudan is governed and kept in order in the interests of Britain, and not of Egypt. But the main point in the proposed reforms is the emancipation of the Egyptian military establishment from British control, and on this question Britain is not likely to give way.

No doubt attempts will be made by Britain's enemies, domestic and foreign, to represent the dispatch of British warships to Alexandria as a high-handed attempt to coerce Egypt into submission, and the Note handed to the Egyptian Prime Minister by the British High Commissioner is seemingly regarded by the Nationalists as an ultimatum. But it should be obvions that Britain must have sufficient force at her disposal in this quarter to guard against any repetition of the murderous attacks on foreign residents which have marked past political disturbances in Egypt. There is as much reason to safeguard British subjects at Alexandria and Cairo as at Shanghai. As to the British Note, it seems that Lord Lloyd has been authorised simply to point out that the control of the Egyptian army by a British Sirdar is an arrangement that has no bearing on the political independence and autonomy secured for Egypt five years ago. The position is certainly delicate, and from the standpoint of foreign residents precarious; but if the British Government holds firmly to the Declaration of 1922, no doubt the crisis will be safely tided over.