EGYPT

Evening Star, Issue 17924, 21 March 1922, Page 7

EGYPT

EXTB.EJHSTS MAKING TROUBLE. Prw Association-By Telegraph-Copyright. CAIRO, March 19. Many disloyal demonstrations and tho destruction of decorations continue, but the native soldiers and police, who are loyal, are masters of tho situation.—-A. and N.Z. Cable. ZAGHLUI/S VARIED CAREER. FROM JUDGE TO AGITATOR. Tho record of Zaghlul Pasha, the Egyptian Nationalist tender, who was deported last December, is thus reviewed by "One Who Knows Him" in the London 'Morning Post': — "Two questions may have suggested themselves to readers of tho current Egyptian HOWS - Firat > wn,a,ti I>as . an ? x ~ judge and lawyer like Zaghhtl 'to do with political riot and agitation? And. next, How did he attain hie present influence? "It is hardly a mere coincidence that I for many years past one member of the native Bench or logal officialdom after anotiieof has become a Minister and politician. In the new sphere he has generally also renewed hostilities with old colleagues on the Bench. One of these transferees m\a Zaghlnl. Material for estimating liis exact value as a Minister would ba hard to come by, hut a stay that amused Cairo for a season may be mentioned, After he had left the Ministry of PuMc Inst«riKition the'results of an annual examination, under Ids successor, _ were angrily challenged by some of the rejected. These accounted for their own failure by stating that advance copies of the question papers had! been somehow secured by the successful, while they had failed to do to. This yam proved to be as true <a& it appeared grotesque. After the inevitable official disclaimers and threats of future severity had subsided another rumor _ became current. It appeared from the Ministerial archives that all Jliis had occurred before in Zaghlul's time. It Lid then been reported, investigated, and officially hurled. LAVISH AND LUXURIOUS HABITS. "In the administrative atmosphere ditch I have attempted l to describe an mbitious judge, yearning for money and drancement, would naturally look o.ut)de the walla of his court. This is prefeely what Zagblul did. The son of a fellah, he became a bare-footed student of the El Azhar Mosque. The theological training which he received there colored the whole of his subsequent career. He developed a considerable power of speaking, and was credited with having amassed money early in life. " But hero his noted lavish and luxurious habits must bo borne in mind before striking a balance. A new house of his was furnished throughout with the most expensive locks, bolts, arid door hinges made expressly for him in England. Again, the delegation he took to Paris is stated to have begun work with a sum of £900,000, and to have returned • penniless to Egypt, after two years. But to resume. There is no doubt that hie services as an advocate were in great request with native litigants, who 60011 lean* to see in him a champion of Islam. When he became a judge in the native courts and the colleague of Europeans, a new chapter of his lifo and influence opened. To the Europeans he displayed a singular faculty of hair-splitting, conveyed in an ex-cathedra stylo, appropriate to his personal bulk, and couched in comically pronounced, but extremely voluble, French. Hie native brethren on the Bench were frankly afraid of his violence of ex- * pres&ion and demeanor, and distrustful of his methods. Some of them certainly believed that their differing from any judgment of his would be denounced, out of court, as infidelity to the faith. It is certainly in this Tegion of activity source-of his future vogue is to be found. SPOKESMAN OF MILITANT ISLAM. " Lord Cromer's fateful decision against the creation of a judiciary strong enough to resist 'official pressure had almost immediate results. While it opened wide the doors of general ambition to lawyers of Zaghlul's type and temperajnont, it shut out for ever the co-operation of a far more valuable, if less noisy and provocative, class.

" The foregoing sketch should suffice for a brief summing up of Zaghlul's adventures to date. As a judge he -was soon treated as a specially-privileged person. The general fear felt for ham hy his colleagues emboldened him to come out as a spokesman of the militant religious party. He would claim that Christian witnesses against a Moslem accused of murder should not be beard at all. ... He has had the handling of much money. Ho has cost England and Egypt huge sums for the preservation of human life and public order during his several agitations. He has been the fugleman of armed rebels against the King's Protectorate and against his immediate Sovereign, the Smlton. Ho has been the avowed agent of Abbas Pasha, dethroned after a long career of intrigue and corruption, and by consent one of the most uninviting characters in Egyptian history. He has been deported to Malta, and speedily released, to made a change in the wind in this country. All these things lie has survived to visit Paris and London in conditions of lavish personal luxury and every form of official flattery."