Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1928. GOVERNMENT IN EGYPT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 8

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

SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1928. GOVERNMENT IN EGYPT.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistanet, For the future in ths distance. And the good that toe Can do.

The King of Egypt has made an extremely vigorous attempt to exercise authority over his Parliament and the Wafd, or Nationalist Party, which at present controls a majority there. A Royal Decree has been issued dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate for three years, and the Government of the country will be carried on in the interval by the King and a Council of Ministers, of course of his own choosing. There is special provision in the Constitution for such an emergency, and Fuad is entirely within his rights. But the Nationalists will see in this development convincing proof of the truth of their recent prediction of "a plot against the Constitution," and, despite the uritish denial, they will naturally maintain that the King has been instigated by Britain to adopt this method of confiscating the political liberties of his people and their Parliament. The present crisis in Egypt dates back to the Declaration of 1922, by which Britain terminated her Protectorate over Egypt and established it as a kingdom in its own right, tor obvious reasons the British Government thought it necessary to reserve certain matters for its own discretion and control—the security of the Suez Canal, the defence of kgypt against foreign interference or aggression, the protection of foreign interests and minorities in Egypt, and the safety of the Sudan. The Nationalists refused to recognise this Declaration, and also rejected the offer of a treaty last year hic-h conceded Egypt a good deal more. At this juncture the Public Assemblies Bill attracted serious attention. The object of this measure was to withdraw police protection from public meetings, and this put a premium on the antiforeign agitation in which the Nationalists are experts. Britain demanded the withdrawal of this Bill, and the Government sullenly and ungraciously postponed it. No doubt the Public Assemblies Bill, coupled with the refusal of the Egyptian judges to accept the evidence connecting members of the \\ afd with the assassination of the Sirdar, marks the culminating point in the struggle between the Nationalists and Britain. King Fuad, who holds his throne from Britain, has naturally associated himself with the British view of the situation, and, finding that the Wafd, which has an undoubted majority in Parliament, is absolutely intractable and implacable, he has decided to suspend representative, government altogether for the time rather than allow the fanatical followers of Sarvat to precipitate a crisis which might compel Britain to withdraw the privileges that she has granted. It is an unfortunate situation, but Fuad, who took an active part in the negotiations between the two Governments, naturally feels that he is discredited and humiliated by the rejection of the treaty which he helped to arrange, and probably thinks that the only alternative to his action is the ruin of his unfo-tur.ato country.