THE NEW EGYPT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 68, 22 March 1937, Page 6

THE NEW EGYPT.

GREAT EXPERIMENT BEGUN.

I CAN INDEPENDENCE SUCCEED? • —- —— - " (By MARC T, GREENE.) No. 1. CAIRO. Egypt now embarks upon a great experiment, the experiment of self-government. In many ways it is the most significant, and it may have the meet far-reaching consequences, of any such experiment yet undertaken by an- Oriental people. Britain, wisely or not, as only time can tell, now gives to a people for centuries economically and socially impoverished and oppressed, very largely illiterate and with only a handful of leaders by any serious person deemed capable of the task they are attempting, the opportunity to make for themselves an independent nation fit to take a place in the world worthy of the great heritage of the Egyptian people. It ie no more than accurate to record that opinions are divided as to their capacity for doing it. •

In considering the matter of Egyptian independence, economic and social interests have perhaps been too much subordinated to political, especially by the Egyptians themselves. Here are more than 15,000,000 people, only 400,000 of them Europeans, existing in an area of considerably less than 400,000 square milee, of which no more than a scant 15,000 are capable of supporting a fixed population. This m the Nile Valley and Delta. All the rest of the land is desert, ,the Libyan, or Western, the Arabian, or Eastern, and the Sinai Peninsula. Except for one or two unimportant coast towns this entire area is inhabited only, by nomads, chiefly Bedouins, illiterate, primitive and sometimes dangerous, entirely outside the social structure of the country. Impoverished People. The result of this small, fertile area with its large population is, and for centuries has been, economic impoverishment. Even in the Mediterranean district fev., if any, people are poorer than the Egyptians. Indeed, how they live at all is incomprehensible to the visiting foreigner. You eec, aa you travel through the country, up the Nile and into the real heart of Egypt that socially has nothing to do with the large cities, Cairo and Alexandria, the fellaheen crowded together like animate and generally in close touch therewith, like, a Chinese or Indian coolie and his water buffalo in the same mud shack. You see this Egyptian peasantry striving to maintain an existence in the ages-old fashion, raising water from the irrigation canals by means of handoperated buckets and derricks, ploughing with the erotched branch of a tree, living within dirty walls of sun-baked mud which would fall to pieces in an instant were there any prolonged rain. From dawn to dark they labour, and you find that they exist on what may roughly be valued at flvepence a day. Their clothes are mere rags for the most part, and their food as scanty aa any people exist upon anywhere on the face of the earth.

This has been so for ages, and one reason for it is the Oriental psychology. By that I mean that to the Oriental there muet always be a few wealthy and a maae of impoverished, slaves economically if not socially. To the Oriental mind that is an accepted fact, part of the enduring scheme of things. Except with a few enlightened and Western-educated leaders, this wide economic disparity is not a matter of immediate concern, because it always has existed. You find that, to be the case from one end of the Orient to the other. Nowhere, with very rare exceptions, is it the wealthy Oriental leader who takes up the cause of the masses. It is an intellectual out of their own ranks, like Gandhi, who fights for them. Prospects of the. Experiment. In estimating the chances of success of Egypt's great experiment, this is, I think, one ,of the most important, if not the moet important, thing to be considered. Hue Western influence. Western education. Western example, already had so pronounced an effect upon Egyptian psychology, which is quite as Oriental a* any, as to have brought the present Egyptian leaders to a full awareness of the fact that the success of any experiment in self government must in the fast analysis rest upon the well-being of the common people? Opinions are divided. Frankness compels one to record that the average Englishman of long residence in Egypt is not sanguine. Yet the general disposition is to give Egypt every chance, even as that policy has led' to British withdrawal from practically all political direction of Egyptian affairs. Any reasonable person will* agree that it i* far from English intent to maintain a political overlord«liip of any people- who show the slightest capacity for successfully conducting their own affairs. Indeed, others than English have felt more than once that too much lias been yielded in doubtful cases, as in the rendition of certain extra-territorial rights in China. In those oa*es leading Chinese themselves were among the strongest in opposition to Britain's retirement, and it is very significant that a number of wealthy Egyptians take the same position in the case under discussion. I