Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1922. THE FUTURE OF EGYPT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1922, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1922. THE FUTURE OF EGYPT

" Egypt has been created an Independent Sovereign State, subject to certain reservations. The Protectorate has been terminated." Such was the momentous news which was cabled to us on Wednesday, occupying just as many lines as the columns taken up in the same issue by the reports of Princess Mary's wedding. Even the weather and the parasols on the wedding day took up four or five times as much space as the news about Egypt. A slight addition to the tantalising brevity of the Egyptian message was supplied on the following day, but we are still left very much in the dark as to the meaning of the all-important qualifying clause : " Subject to certain reservations." The nature of these reservations constitutes the crux of the whole matter, very much as it did for Ireland. Everybody was agreed that Ireland should have the fullest possible measure of self-government that was compatible with the safety of the Empire, but the reconciliation of the two objects proved 7to be a matter of almost insuperable difficulty. Egypt presented a similar problem. Though not situated, like Ireland, close to the heart of the Empire, Egypt commands a vital point in the Empire's communications. " The master of Egypt," said Napoleon, " is the master of India," and the German strategists and all others have agreed with him. Had Egypt been in the hands of a hostile Power, the Allies could not have won the war, and the British Empire must have been shattered.

It is interesting to recall that the necessities of the Empire forced the occupation of Egypt upon a British Government which its enemies described as a "Little England" ■" Government, and which took the step with the utmost reluctance. Gladstone was vehemently opposed to Disraeli's aggressive foreign' policy, and looked askance on his purchase of the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal. Yet a' few years later Gladstone himself was compelled by insurrection and threatened anarchy in Egypt to take a much stronger step for the protection of the Canal and the Empire. He and his colleagues " fought as hard as they could," says Lord Morley, " and for good reasons, against single-handed intervention by Great Britain," but the fates were too strong for them. British troops were landed at 'Alexandria to restore order in 1882, and they have remained there ever since.

A great nation, says Lord Oromer, cannot throw off the responsibilities which its past history and its position in the world have imposed on it. English history affords other examples of the Government and people of England drifting by accident into doing what wag not only right but also most in accordance with British interests.

Lord Cromer drives his point home very happily with a quotation from a speech of Demosthenes to the, Athenians: " Justioe is what we should always look at and always practice, but we ought, at the same time, to take care that our actions shall also be to our advantage."

It must be admitted that the pursuit of justice under (these conditions' is sometimes divided by but a very narrow line from the hypocrisy by which, according to so many of our foreign critics, the British Empire has been gradually extended and consolidated. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the military intervention in Egypt in 1882 was utterly repugnant to every one of the Ministers who were responsible for it. It is equally clear that their action has conferred an immense benefit upon Egypt, the Empire, and the world. The last two points are sufficiently covered by the matter to which we have already referred—the value of Egypt to the Allies during the Great War. In British hands Egypt guarded the Suez Canal, kept the way open to India and Australia, and provided a base for operations against the Dardanelles and Palestine.' The alternative to British occupation was that the Sultan of .Turkey, whose technical suzerainty was maintained, would have been also the de facto sovereign, except in so far as the Kaiser had displaced Jiim. It is quite'unnecessary .to labour a point which is quitfi beyond dispute—viz., that but for the action forced upon

a peace : at-almost-any-price British Government in 1882 the Allies would have been hopelessly handicapped in the Great War.

Nor has the world profited at the expense of Egypt. Never during the six thousand years of its history has Egypt enjoyed better government or greater and more evenly diffused prosperity than under British administration. It is indeed probable that no rule ever did more for any country within so short a time than Lord Cromer's administration did for Egypt from 1883 to 1907. "Water and justice " had been declared by a previous ruler of the country to be its two crying needs. Lord Cromer supplied them both, and, by the " singular combination of strength and forbearance " which Lord Milner has called his most striking, characteristic, brought administrative and financial order out of chaos, and peace and prosperity out of unrest and misery. Of his successors, Lord Kitchener alone appears to .have done really well. Administrative blunders and tW& unrest produced by the war have made Egypt a hotbed of discontent during recent years. The British Protectorate, which was proclaimed on the 18th December, 1914, as a necessary consequence of Turkey's entry into the war, has given great offence, especially since the gospel of "self-determination" became a conspicuous part of the Allies' propaganda. Eecently the patriotism of Egypt has. followed much the same course as that of Ireland in the assertion of its claims, and the inherent difficulties of the position have been greatly aggravated by divided counsels in the British Cabinet.

As long ago as December, 1920, the Milner, Commission recommended the recognition of the independence of Egypt and her protection against foreign aggression, and a converse acknowledgment by Egypt of Britain's privileged position in the Nile Valley and the assurance of free access by-Britain to Egyptian territory in case of war. Mr. Churchill thought the safeguards proposed by the Milner Commission insufficient, but, as in the case of Ireland, delay has only increased the Nationalists' demands. According to Mr. Lloyd George's statement, four matters have , been absolutely reserved to the discretion of the Imperial Government—viz., the security of, communications, defence against all foreign aggression, protection of foreign interests in Egypt and the protection of minorities, and the Sudan- After all the bitter controversy of the> last two years there must, however, be some understanding to qualify this discretion, but its nature is not disclosed.