EGYPTIAN DEMANDS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 292, 3 September 1908, Page 7

EGYPTIAN DEMANDS.

TURKS' ATTITUDE. NATIONALISTS IN CONSTANTINOPLE. LUKEWARM RECEPTION. < (DY TELEGRAM—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COrtMGHT.) (Rec. September 2, 9.15 p.m.) Constantinople, September 1. Tlio Egyptian Nationalists have sent a deputation to Constantinople, which is endeavouring to interest the newspapers and tho Youiig Turks in their Egyptian, movement. r ; ! A meeting which was callod was a failure. Thcro is no disposition to embarrass Britain. • Tho papers assert that Egypt, has had virtual freedom for twenty years. "Ikdam" publishes a warm appreciation of the work of Lord Cromer in Egypt. . LORD CROMER AND PAN-ISLAM ISM. A London cablegram of July 29. stated that the new constitutional movement in Turkey is rojectinz the Sultan's Pan-Islamism "so far as its intolerant aspects are concerned." The "in tolerant aspects' of Pan-Islam are so serious as regards the Mohammedan > portipns of the British Empire that the attitude of the now .Turkey to Egypt and India is of high importance. The cry of the Egyptian Nationalists ireechoing the words of English statesmen, including the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman) is that "good government is no sufficient substitute for self-government." Lord Cromer, in his last report on Egypt, partly quoted on July 30, ■asks: "Is there no hope for Egyptian Nationalism? In the form in_ which that idea is conceived by the Egyptian National party, there i 3, I am convinced, little or none. But it is well for a nation, _ and even for practical politicians, to entortain an ideal, oven although its realisation may be distant and beset with many difficulties. I venture, therefore, as a counter-pro-gramrno to that of the Egyptian National party, to put forward an ideal which I have for long entertained. It- is that tho only possible Egyptian nationality which can ever be oreated must consist of all the dwellers in Egypt, irrespective of race, rejigion, or extraction. So long as the country was well-nigh throttled by impending bankruptcy, so long as the fate of the Soudan was uncertain, ana so long as Anglo-French rivalry was in a more or less acute stage, discussions or reflections on this subject could be nothing more than academical. These obstacles have now been removed. '

Another, however, remains.' So long as tho rcgimo of tho Capitulations in its present form, exists, not only must tho Egyptians and the > foreigners resident in Egypt always be divided into two separate camps, but also no thorough solidarity of interest can be established between, tho various communities of Europeans inter so. There can bo no real cohesion and no concentrated action. That cohesion can only be secured by the creation of a local International Legislative Council.' Apart from other grounds on which it may be defended as a reform beneficial alike to Europeans 'and Egyptians, I maintain that this measure will tend more than any other to create a community of interest amongst the hoterogeneous population which inhabits the valley of the Nile, and that it will bo tho first step towards the formation of an Egyptian national spirit in the only sense in which that spirit can bo evoked without detriment to tho true interests of tho country.' Possibly some long while 1 may yet elapse before the first European Legislative Council meets in Egypt. But I have no fear for tho ultimate result."