The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3557, 2 December 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1882.

The report current in Egypt, to which our cablegram refers, that the trial of Arabi and of the other rebels will be entirely dropped will probably turn out true. All through the Egyptian troubles there has been evidence that Arabi was not altogether a free agent. The open expressions of good - will towards his cause, and tbe aspirations for his success against the foreigner, published in the Constantinople papers, showed that at least Arabi had the support of the Turkish authorities. The subsequent discovery of correspondence that had passed between the Egyptian rebel and the Sultau disclosed the fact that, if Arabi was not at the time acting strictly according to orders, he, at all events, was not acting contrary to the wishes of his suzerain. And, up to a certain point, it is difficult to say whether the Khedive was not halting between two opinions ; whether he would not have openly accepted the lead of the movement for the expulsion of foreigners if a temporary military success on the part of Arabi had afforded a shadow of hope. On the face of it Arabi can only be regarded as a rebel for deeds done after the Sultan's proclamation, which would certainly never have been issued but for the fear of the consequences of a refusal. Those who have already decided offhand that Arabi deserves to be hanged for complicity in the massacres at Alexandria will find it somewhat difficult to reconcile their theory with the part which Arabi is reported in the Standard to have played in preventing massacre elsewhere: — " Upon the news arriving from Tantah of the wholesale massacre of Christians there Arabi sent.a body of military, and hung twelve ofthe ringleaders of the mob. He also sent orders through the country that all Christians Bhould be left unmolested, under pain of death. He rewarded Ahmed Bey, who protected the fugitives who had escaped from the massacre at Tantah." The Pall Mall Budgetthereupon remarks that judgment, it is evident, should be reserved as to Arabi's share in the massacres. It may yet turn out that he alone stood between the Christians and an Egyptian version ot the {Sicilian Vespers.