TRAGIC EVENTS IN EGYPT.

Bruce Herald, Volume LV, Issue 66, 28 August 1919, Page 5

TRAGIC EVENTS IN EGYPT.

'' People who were in Egypt during the earlier disturbances are now returning to this country, and some of them are bringing the impression that the whole truth has not been told to the British public," says the London Times. "Our own information does not confirm this view. 'SSo far as we are able to judge, no important episode of the insurrection has been concealed at the instance of the Foreign Office. If the contrary idea prevails, it is largely due to the past extraordinary folly of the censorship in Egypt, which ever since 1914 has been the most incompetent, the most inept, and the most savagely, ruthless censorship in any country under British control, not excepting Mesopotamia. The consequence is that every statement which passes its scrutiny is suspect both in Cairo and in Great Britain.

"While Egypt is once more without a Ministry, the strike of the public"services has collapsed. Two factors are likely to handicap the restoration of ordinary conditions. One is the great amount of destruction on the railways, which is far worse than was at first believed, and the other is the release of storage water in the Nile, which will affect the next crops. The rioters have everywhere destroyed the telegraph lines and instruments, a cle.ar proof that the swarm of students who left the El Azhar University 011 March 10, and scattered throughout the country, bearing the call to "rebellion, had been carefully instructed in the art of paralysing an administration. The replacement of the telegraphs will be a long task, The. instruments have been smashed, especially iti the railway stations, and poles beyond computation have been destroyed.

"All the evidence agrees that

the Ministry of the Interior was singularly weak and out of touch with the country, but this was partly due to the fact that war demands had destroyed the efficiency of the British branch of the Civil Service. The provinces were drained of British officials and left to their own devices. The Egyptians subordinates gradually entered upon an orgy of corruption which recalled the worst days of Esmail, but was neither recognised nor checked. They were actuated partly by avarice, and partly by a malicious desire to inflame the populace against British control.

"They succeeded only too well, ! and it; is to their prolonged and ! uncontrolled machinations that we owe the transformation of the fellaheen into a suspicious and virulently hostile peasantry. For every recruit required for the Labour Corps the Egyptian-offi-cials called up 20 or 30 men, generally took baksheesh from all but one, and sent the odd man, often a personal enemy, into the field. They commandeered the food stocks of the peasantry at Army rates, and then forced them to buy grain and other food at very high prices from profiteers with whom they were in league. The collec- | tions for charitable and other purposes connected with the war were used to extort big sums from the ignorant people, very little of which ever reached Cairo." ■ Canon Barnes, preaching in Westminster Abbey recently, said:— !

"Until three years ago practically the whole world praised the beneficence of our rule. To-day Egypt was aflame with revolt. Most of our newspapers Avere silent, but some told truths generally admitted in private conversation, that British agents resorted during the war to forced labour to build the lines of communication into Palestine. The compulsion was indirect, but natives were taken on an enormous scale. Further, it was alleged that, as in Mesopotamia, the medical service proved, inadequate and a heavy mortality resulted.''