THE FATE OF FASHODA.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 76, 27 September 1898, Page 4

THE FATE OF FASHODA.

To-day's cablegrams bring the welcome news that General Kitchener has occupied Fashoda without coming into actual conflict with the French. The Times correspondent and the Cairo authorities say nothing about Captain Marchand's presence in the town, but the representative of the London Daily Telegraph reports that the Sirdar insisted upon his evacuating it. This the Frenchman apparently did under protest, leaving the question of ownership to be settled by diplomatic negotiations between the two European Powers concerned. General Kitchener has evidently not allowed the grass to grow under his feet, as he is also reported to have garrisoned Sobat, several miles up the river above Fashoda. This activity on the one sidp, with the victory gained by the Governor of Kassala on the Abyssinian side of the Nile, points to a prompt suppression of the Dervish misrule throughout the country that has for so many years been devastated by it. Nothing could have been worse at the present moment than an armed conflict in these regions between British and French forces. The results might have proved disastrous for some j'ears to a country already reduced to a pitiable plight. After enduring for years the tyranny of the Mahdi and his successor, it would be a sorry fate that made the Soudan a cockpit for European struggles. The British cannot well rest from their task until the Khalifa aud his principal Emirs are captured or killed, and it is regrettable that they were allowed to slip away at Omdurman. When the dispute with the French has to be settled by diplomacy the Auglo-Egyptian claims should have little risk of being upset by the new French demands, based simply ou the favourite French ground of " effective occupation," especially as General Kitchener is now very effectively in possession of the disputed district.