ANGLOPHOBIA IN EGYPT.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12663, 29 November 1906, Page 6

ANGLOPHOBIA IN EGYPT.

Egypt threatens to become tho Jeshurun of the smaller nations. Ten years of growing prosperity have caused her to "wax fat," and now sho seems inclined to kick. Whether the latest recrudescence of Anglophobia, of which the well-informed Cairo correspondent of 'The Times" gives warning, is general or only local, remains yet to bo told, perhaps to be ascertained, but the situation pos»es-x?s much more disquieting features than was the caso earlier in the year, when some British officers wero attacked in a Nile village. It is undoubtedly a bad sign that the Khedive should not disavow the assertion by the Nationalist party that he is tho chief supporter of their programme, and that Mtrstapha Pasha, a violent pro-German anti-British agitator, should again bo in favour. Ho is tho stormy petrel of Egypt, ever in evidence when disaffection towards the dominant Power is most active, and always in secret communication with England's enemies in Europe.- He is the man whom certain Radical members of the House of Commons entertained during his recent visit to London, and whose true character, as England's most inveterate foe in Egypt, was exposed at the time. Unfortunately there aro always some Englishmen only too ready to ' espouse tho cause of a man of his type, and to help him in his propaganda ' against England. Thus wo find Mr Wilfrid Seawen Blunt, lawyer, minor poet, and breeder of Arab horses, giving the Nationalist party in Egypt all the assistance in his power, ' even to tho length of publishing pam- J phlets inveighing against British dc ruination in Egypt. Yet Egypt is a living proof of the beneficent effects i of British rule. Ten years ago, as Mr Douglas Story shows, Egypt imported goods to the value of eight millions: 1 to-day its importations are valued at twenty-one millions. In the same ' period the value of its exports has risen ' from thirteen to twenty-two millions. ' "Ten ycr- :;o Egypt gazed backward ' " with lvgret to a glorious past. ' "To-day it looks forwards with confi- I "deuce to a prosperous future." Peace ! reigns, as it has never reigned before, ]

to tho uttermost confines of the land. The Soudan, instead of l>eing the home of one of the most cruel despotisms that ever existed, is becoming absolutely civilised, and its ancient fertility and productiveness are being regained now that the inhabitants can live untroubled by the raider and tho tyrant. The fellah tills his fields under conditions that he never dreamed of until England took upon herself the task of restoring order and introducing good government to the land. Ten years ago if he wanted to borrow money ho had to go to some Greek usurer, and was lucky if the interest on his loan was less than 100 per cent. To-day ho can go to the Agricultural Bank j nnd borrow up to 50 per cent, of t p e selling value* of his land, paying only 9 per cent. mten«t. On all sides Mr Story,who recently visit* d Egypt, heard it admitted that the British occupation had brought prosperity. Why, then, should there be any discontent against a Power that has so materially benefited a people who hitherto had suffered all tho ills of kid government? Mr Story learned the answer to the question that recurred in his mind when, with a friend who knew the fellah, intimately, ho visited a little village beyond Zag-a-Zig, where no white man had been for more than two years. The two Englishmen received a most hospitable welcome and talked with all the principal men of the village. Those admitted that the condition ef the country under British guidance had greatly improved, that money was more plentiful, and that TTi administrative offices wero more ably and more honestly filled by English officials than by Egyptians. But then carno tho solution of tho problem—the eternal conflict between tho Crescent and the. Cross. Mr Story asked one old irreooncilable if the people over contemplated rising against tho foreigner in Egypt. "He " looked at mc grimly for an Lustant, " then said very quietly and very distinctly: 'If tho Sultan commanded, " ' we should kill every unbeliever be- " ' tween the rising and the setting ot " ' the sun.' His dictum found tho sup- " port of all in flic assembly. What 1 " found at my first sotting out, 1 "proved as I journeyed from village to "village. Careful administration ap- " pealed to the intelligence as to the " pockets of the people, but their sen- " timent was unchanged and unchange- " able. Given a second Arabi, we should "have/b fight a second Tel-el-Kebir in "Egypt." It is to this religious prejudice—of all prejudices the hardest to overcome—that tho enemies of England in Egypt appeal. And it is th.'it which makes any disaffection in Egypt a Tnatter not to be lightly dismissed.