TWO BRITISH PROBLEMS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 October 1924, Page 13

TWO BRITISH PROBLEMS.

IRELAND AND THE SUDAN,. It is part of the curious tendency oi history to run in cycles that ireiuuu and tne Sudan shoiird/ue engaging om attention this summer,, writes a cor.reapondent of the Manchester Guardian, in August, Ibti4, the problem of ire-, land seemed more insoluble" than ever. In August, 1884, the House of Commons was asked tor a vote of credit for extricating Gordon from the Sudan, and that unhappy country be came a general topic of conversation. Actually the Sudan problem, like- tu>irish problem, went bacn much farther. The. Sudan had been eonquereu in 1819 by Ismail P : asha, and ttyd equatorial Provinces were added b.> Samuel Baker in 1870. But it was only in 1881 that English people began to take cognisance of the Sudan, when the Mahdi raised the standard oi revolt. The rising spread rapidly. “The people rightly struggling- to be free,” in a phrase which Gladstone’s enemies wore threadbare, avenged themselves on their oppressors. “I look upon the possession of the Sudan,’ Gladstone said, “as the calamity of Egypt. It has been a drain on her Treasury; it has been a drain on lie> men. It is estimated that 100,tK.K; Egyptians have laid down their lives in endeavouring to maintain that bar ren conbuest.” Wingate said that th< function* of the Egyptian soldiers wa “that of honest countrymen sharing in the villainy' of the < brigand.-, from the Levant and Asia Minor, whwrung money, women and drink from a miserable population.” Perhaps there is nothing in Brit is! history quite so strange as the com plete obscuring of the real facts of the matter by the personality of oik man. The horrible tyranny to which the Sudanese had been subjected wa: forgotten in Gordon. Gladstone’s fa mous phrase could not have been at tacked more bitterly “if the Malidhad been for dethroning Marcus Auie lius or St. Louis of France.” The “Christian hero” sent England mad ; . the Queen was infected by the public i hysteria, and seemed doubtful wlietl o Gladstone or the Mahdi were the greater villain. Fortunately we ca>. 'treason more soberly nowadays.