BRITAIN IN EGYPT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 202, 20 May 1908, Page 7

BRITAIN IN EGYPT.

A PROTEST. DEMAND FOR EVACUATION. CABLEGRAM TO BRITISH FOREICjN ' ' . MINISTER. ' e IT WEOiupn—rnEsg association—CQ?TKiqHT Cairo, May 18. Six thousand landowners and notables held a meeting at Alexandria, and resolved to cablo-to Sir Edward Grey, British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, protesting against the continuance of -British occupation, and demanding fulfilment of a-promise to evacuate tho country.

NATIQNAMSNI. Egypt is nominally dependent 011 Turkey. From 1879 to 3883 the country was linrler tho dual control of France and Great Britain, but in 1883 Britain intervened after Arabi Pasha's rebellion, and since thfen has practically governed the country. France proved a disturbing force for many years by threatening to raise' the question of Britain's evacuation of Egypt,. but since the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904 there has been 110 trouble from .that quarter. The Egyptian Nationalists, who prior to that relied a good dear 011 French sympathy, hay< since redoubled their efforts'. Tho Nationalists—like those of India, China, and Persia—are of varying grades find degrees. Opinions differ as to how far they aro tingccl with pan-Islamism, which is generally held to mean a combination of Moslems throughout the world to resist the Christian Powers. But the view is widely held'that' there is much in-comnipn between tho movements in all the four countries mentioned; find ths)t the panIslamic ■ WftVQ receives encouragement' at' tho centre, Constantinople. 'As far as can be judged from the published progrAmmes,' the Egyptian Liberal party professos to work along lines of''social reform in co-operation' with' the British authorities, arid a gradual education of 'the people up to the point of representative government: 1 The Egyptian Nationalist : party's programme, considerably inoro advanced, contains' such planks as'immediate constitutional government, and gradual replacing of European officials by Egyptians. The, demand for evacuation is, of course, tho top-note of Nationalism, and, ■' according to the above cablegram, an influential meeting has pledged, itself very •emphatically.• Apparently it is intended to work along the lines Of the. lato Mustapha Ivamil, Nationalist leader* who last year wrote to . Sir Henry Campbell-BannermariV "If England considered evacuation possibloin 1890, and had even fixed tli'6 date for it in the Druinmond-Wolff Convention, how can she maintain that it is impossible to-day? What English J.iberal qaji seriously, contend that the hour for tho evacua-. tion lias not yet struck, when Gladstone recognised, in the letters which he vrote me'iiy 1896, that tho hour of evacuation had struck sevoral years ago ?" Mustapha Kaniil, in a letter to' Paris "Fjgaro," denied, that tho Egyptian Nationalists tiro pan-Islamists. Ho wrote: "Wo are fight jng against the foreign y.oko. not' against , England as England, b\it against tho'occupier and .usurper. Tl\p ; Japanese have given us unforgetable lessons. , But wo are,fighting now_ only with ,tho weapons of reason and of justice." . >' ' Whilo holding that a responsible Egyptian Ministry with complete financial control would lead to national .bankruptcy!" lie would concede "a local international Legislative Coi;ncil, which would create a-community, of interest among all classes in Egypt."; He denies that; tho Nationalist 'extremists represent' the mass of the people. In bis >farewell speech at Cairo lie'said that the British occupation would continue for an indefinite' period, and the British Government would bo responsible for the main lines on which the administration-was conducted. '