BANKER IN EGYPT AND SUDAN

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26397, 16 April 1951, Page 6

BANKER IN EGYPT AND SUDAN

ASHBURTON MAN’S CAREER

MR E. A. TURNER VISITING CHRISTCHURCH

Mr E. A. Turner, who retired in November from the position of manager of the Sudan branches of Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas), a post he had held since 1936, is visiting Christchurch. Mr Turner was born and educated at Ashburton and began his banking career, which was almost wholly spent in Middle East countries, in the Ashburton branch of the Union Bank of Australia in 1907. After returning to New Zealand from the First World War, Mr Turner joined the Christchurch branch of the bank but after a few months he sailed for England to join the Anglo-Egyptian Bank. Mr Turner was immediately posted to Khartoum. Later he spent three and a half years at Assiwt, in Upper Egypt, and eight and a half years at Port Said, before returning to Khartoum. For nine years he was president of the Sudan Chamber of Commerce and he was the first president of the Sudan Rotary Club, which was formed in 19.8. Mr Turner was also a member of an advisory council to the Governor-General of the Sudan, before the establishment of a legislative assembly. In 1944 he was awarded the Order of the Nile by King Farouk and in the 1949 New Year Honours he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Mr Turner said in an interview yes£rday that loyalties in the northern Sudan, whose peoples were mainly Moslem and Arabic speaking, were divided between Sayed Abdel Rahman el Mahdi (a son of the man who promoted the revolt of 1882), who was pro-British, and Sayed Ali el Mirghani, a descendant of a so-called prophet who favoured union with Egypt. The followers of Sayed Ali were actually not so opposed to Britain as they were to having to accept the possible domniation of the descendant of the Mahdi, who might still have dreams of becoming King of the Sudan.

Mr Turner said he thought Egyptian interest in the Sudan was caused mainly by the fact that the waters of the Nile, which were the life-blood of Egypt, flowed through the Sudan, and the Sudan at some future time might control this supply to the detriment of Egypt. Mr Turner said there was a strong movement for independence among the younger semi-educated classes, but he did not think that they were yet canable of managing their own affairs. The southern part of the country is populated by negroid pagan tribes who are being converted to Christianity.