EGYPTIAN AMBITIONS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 3 June 1926, Page 9

EGYPTIAN AMBITIONS.

SIB BOBEBT lIOBNE’S VIEWS,

Sir Bobert Horne, addressing his constituents at Glasgow a coupl'e of months ago, said, he had .iust returned! from Egypt, a country which, as the result of ‘British administration, was now enjoying a peroid of regeneration and) prosperity. Measured by its financial conditions, Egypt to-day was 'one of the most prosperous countries in the world. She had an exuberant surplus on her Budget, and all her people were employed under conditions of freedom and pay such as they had never known in the past. The irrigation works which had been carried out by the British A dlrni nits ration, had added millions of acres to the cultivated soil, and increased fits value by ten® of millions in pounds sterling. So with the Sudan. In the ‘Sudan, as in Egypt, though necessarily not to the same extent, the prosperity of the people had become a matter of satisfaction and congratulation. One might have hoped that a country so favoured as Egypt would have been in such, a condition of peace as would have relieved England from all anxiety with regard to her government. Unfortunately, this was not the case. There was still an element there which was af ruitful source of disturbance, and which would compel us for a long time to watch with great care, and perhaps oven with, considerable apprehension, the course of political movements.

“A new election,” Sir Bobert proceeded, “is to take place in two months’ time (it- took place recently), but nobody who has any knowledge of the facts lias any belief that it. will .result in anything but another electoral triumph for Zaghlul. His policy, is notorious. It embraces the extrusion of our inlluenc'e in Egypt,, complete .freedom of laction for Egypt without check or interference from us in any •siliaps or form, and the acquisition of the Sudan for Egypt. It is a programme. which will be constantly urged. -Matters appear quiet for the moment, but it would be idle to disguise from ourselves that the conditions of •trouble still exist. “There is a weakness at home from which I hope we may not have to suffer. Mr Bamsay MacDonald, when Prime Minister, rejected Zaghlul’s inordinate claims. I do not doubt that he would maintain a similar front in the future, but there are- many members of his party who have expressed themselves in a very different sense, and who, if they had their will, would be. inclined to destroy all that we have built up in Egypt during the last 40 years. That type of opinion we .should resist with all our force. If it prevailed it would not only undermine our strength and power in the world, with injurious effects to- our commercial and industrial life, but it would also be disastrous to Egypt. We must hope and believe that as time passes even those an Egypt who are hostile to us at .present wall come to realise how much Egypt depends upon us for all that she is and can be, and will be. ready to make with us those frien.d]v arrangements which are essential to her future progress and. prosperity. ”