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Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13890, 26 October 1905, Page 10

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“ Does ho speak English ?” “ Better than the English, and Arabic like a native.” _ The first citizen of New York— -ana were his name known., none weal'd dissent from his right to this high custinotion—and ; the American traveller from Africa were speaking, the other flay, of the Governor-General or tne Soudan, and the incident is related, not to suggest the lack or knowledge in well-informed circles, but the marvellous Change which has bcon wrongm in - what wo have long been taught, m the “darkest” continent. The Africa of. the past, even of the closing years of the nineteenth century, is no more, and to-day a great continent, Ime the full-orbed sun, is rising almro the ternational horizon. the Governor-General of the Somflan, Sir F. Reginald Wingate, who wotrthdj fills also the post of Sirdar (com-mander-in-chief) of the Egyptian Army, and his military and civil staff have accomplished in tho six jhort years since Kitchener routed the oervushes on the plains of Kerren is wholly unprecedented in the history of the world, and oryy to be realised by actual inspection upon the scene. The ultimate fact of the situation is that, partly through statesmanship, partly through the lack of it,, by the logic' of events, and by the force of circumstances, Great Britain to-day dominatjes tite wtolß of Africa; nas its future within its control as surely and as firmly as that of India. Germany, in the north-west and south-east; France, Belgium and Portugal, around the margin of the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, may have their “ noldingS ” and their territorial jurisdiction ; but the spinal column, the Cape-to-Cairo trunk line through the continent from north to south is wholly and irrevocably Egglkh," and whenever it becomes necessary to make this fact emphatic and forcible, then the mastery of the situation, the advantage of the" position, will be demonstrated. In the meantime, Great Britain, applying the game principles which have made her the great colonial Power of the world, goes on developing the industrial and commercial resources of the countries which have fallen under her-influence, establishing law' and orfler, schools, even higher institutions or learning, and pouring in upon the places which have for centuries been shrouded in darkness the light of modern civilisation. The fact IB that modern methods have accelerated civilisation at large almost as rapidly as in detail; with steam and electricity in the service, the spread of the institutions of the civilised world is immeasurably more, rapid than a century ago, and w-hat then would have taken a generation to accomplish is now effected in a few years. Less than seven years have passed since Kitchener scattered the Dervish legions and drove the Khalifa out of his capital, recaptured Khartoum,- and on the ruins of the palace raised the English and the Egyptian flags, and Eaid the last memorial honours to the ero and the martyr, Gordon. On that very spot rises, to-day, the stately palace, fronted by the broad avenue, below which rolls tho noble Blue Nile, and behind which are tho beautiful palace gardens, luxuriant with tropical vegetation, and beyond the broad avenues of the new city rising like the

phoanix from the ashes and ruins of thirteen years of blight and devastation. It is only seven years, too, since the English merchants of Alexandria, the capitalists, French, German and English, of Cairo, as one of them said the other day, knew very little about Khartoum; they merely knew that it was off somewhere to the south; now they are in daily communication, transacting business by mail and telegraph, by rail and river, and Khartoum is a busy, prosperous commercial centre. The south-bound traveller meets at Sheila] for. the first time the Soudan military government, a trim, well-set-up officer in khaki, who takes the tickets, assigns the rooms, and regulates all the personal affairs of the passengers on the Toski, which in thirty-six hours makes the journey, .250 miles, up the river to Wady Haifa, for yearn Kitchener’s base of operations. “ Our front,”, said the veteran, our fellowtraveller, “ was the rail head. Whenever we would open .a new section of the line, the front was advanced to the end of the track; then, if necessary, we Had a fight and pushed on for another section, and so it was, year in and year out, until finally the rails crossed the Atbara, on the Americanbuilt bridge, and then, with one more leap forward, it reached the Blue Kile at Khartoum, north.” To-day all this is gone over in thirty-six hours; the traveller ends his journey at the “ Grand ” Hotel, and if he looks for local diversion, a "tram” will take him through the town down to Mongren Point, where a ferry will carry him across to Omdurman, the Mahdi’s capital and metropolis. Khartoum, the capital, though in a most commanding and strategical position, guards the entrance to the valley of the Nile and the great equatorial country, whence comes the water which gives life in this wonderful region. For the first time law and order,

peace and happiness prevail, homes are ' possible, property is respected, the industries ' are encouraged, and everywhere upon the faces of all'tho people are written happiness and contentment, . of a humble, and elemental sort, it is ;true, but still just as one expects to ■find in similar surroundings, and one which is full of promise for the future. For generations the Soudan has been the spoil and the prey of the Egyptian . from the north and the? slave-hunter ; and the savage from the south, so that between the two, the tillers of the soil, the pastoral people of the plains, were ravaged and plundered to ‘; the verge of extinction. In former time it was an open secret that the Khedive appointed to the Soudan province governors who would • pay him the most for the places, from which they were expected not only to indemnify the cost of their positions, hut to acquire sufficient wealth to live in luxury for the remainder of their lives, while Soudanese military details were the penalties of Egyptian courtsmartial.

So corrupt and tyrannical, indeed, was the Egyptian rule in the Soudan, that the best judges are clear in the conclusion that the Mahdist movement ■at the beginning was political rather than religious. El Mahdi called his people, ’as other liberators have, to rise against the oppressor, and to demand justice from their rulers, and the religious turn was a perversion and an after-thought of the original idea. For 600 miles south of Khartoum the country on both sides of the Nile is rapidly settling up and the area of tilled land is fast increasing, while further south, in the great Shilluk country, are many vast herds of cattle, used now chiefly for buying wives, but which are certain a little later to reach ■ the stage of commercial development and to furnish beef and hides for export. Then come the great swamps of the Nile, the “ sudd ” country, estimated at not less than 60,000 square miles, and beyond the fertile, tropical lands of the Congo Free State, Uganda, and the great lakes, the source of the Nile. Over all this vast area the flag of Great Britain now insures peace, good Order and prosperity; the steamers ply with regularity from Khartoum to Gondekoro, whence an overland march of

a week takes the traveller to Nimule; thence a steamer will take him to Butiaba, on Lake Albert, and then another march across country brings him to Entebbe, whence a steamer will take him across Lake Victoria to Port Florence, where ha may take a train do luxe for Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean. Three thousand ‘ miles, indeed, from Alexandria to tho head of Lake Albert is steam navigation already in operation ; the Rhodesia railway system from tho south is now ninety miles north of tho Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, and will before long reach the shores of Lake Tanganyika: then 450 miles of steam, and it is easy to see that whenever Great Britain desires to open tho Cape-to-Cairo route, it is but a matter oi a few months. In the meantime, other developments of even greater importance are close at hand. Next spring the Suakin-Berber railway, 240 miles, connecting the Red Sea and the Nile Valley, will be open, which moans that it will then be possible to discharge cargoes in sea-going steamships from London, Liverpool-—yes, from Now York, or any American port, to the heart of Africa with one transhipment of 240‘ miles overland, the short journey performed in twenty-four hours from Suakin to Khartoum, where the waters of the Nile will be reached.

Tile change which this will make is scarcely to bo estimated, not only on account of its direct effect upon trade and commerce, but because it will enable coal, the price of which has heretofore been almost prohibitive, to be laid down to Khartoum, to be stored at points up the "White Nile, so that navigation will he expedited and the w'hole problem of transportation rendered much more simple and economical. Besides this, a branch railroad from Khartoum to El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, about two hundred miles, the great gum country, is already projected, and is; likely at an early day to be pushed on to tho southwestward, so that the benefits of transportation, the great civilising force of modern times, will be rapidly extended. All these things point in the same direction, and admit of but one explanation—the regeneration of Africa is sure. Great Britain follows the victories of her aims with those of peace. Almost next door to tho palace in which Gordon lived and died at Khartoum has been erected and endowed, largely by an American, too, the . Gordon Memorial College, where a hundred Arab sheiks’ sons 'are being taught the methods of European civil administration and the mechanic arts, and the practical callings which will be of immediate use among their people. In the College yard they will show you a pump, working with perfect success by an electric motor, both pump and motor built and installed by Arab lads,' as keen in the pursuit of their trade as the brightest Yankee boys, and who find that it is immensely better to earn liberal wages in the shops and on the steamers and trains than the small pittance which they can get in tho bazaars and the markets of their own people. Besides this, the research laboratories of Gordon College have addressed themselves with remarkable skill and directness to tho immediate problems of the situation.

A year ago mosquitoes were practically exterminated in Khartoum and inquiries prosecuted looking to the extension of the campaign throughout the whole of the Soudan; the• tsetse fly. the fatal enemy of horses, was studied with great promise of successful results; the blight bn the durra was analysed, and - in every possible way science was called to the amelioration of the condition and the encouragement of the industry of the people. The new regime is a revelation to the natives, who have never before understood that government meant anything but favouritism, injustice and tyranny. They have found, for the first time, even in tradition, that there is equal and impartial justice, and that the rights of all individuals, high or low, are the same before the law. The English officials have fine tact in handling the native population, rarely disturbing the magistrates or their methods of conducting affairs, but always holding in reserve the power of revision and administering a stern rebuke whenever it is necessary to correct injustice. In the meantitne_ missions are doing excellent auxiliary work. ■ Lord Cromer wisely allots to each denominatiou a certain field or territory along which it is permitted to operate, so that the competition and conflict which have neutralised many deserving efforts in every part of the mission field have in Egypt and the Soudan boon entirely avoided. The United Presbyterian Church of America, which lately celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its missionary work in Egypt, has a prosperous church at Khartoum, including a boys’ school, with branches at Berber and Omdurman, and a flourishing station on the Sobat, 600 miles up the White Kile, with the promise of the early establishment of another at Nasser or its vicinity, 350 miles further up the former river; the English Church-Missionary Society has an excellent girls’ school in Khartoum, and branches in other important town, while the Austrian “ White Fathers ” have flourishing stations along the Upper Nile, all working in harmony and with meet excellent effect upon the secular progress of both the Arab and the black races.

The morning light of civilisation is, indeed, breaking over the whole of the Soudan, and is reflected in every' black and shining face. It is, to be sure, only tho dawn, but it is the dawn of the perfect day. ; America may, perhaps, at the moment, have no direct interest, but as members of the human race, it is cause for just and legitimate satisfaction that cur great elder sister has taken up so well and so wisely the work which has fallen to her hands. Great Britain recognises that tho task is only begun. . Sir William Garstin, the great engineer who has organised and constructed the irrigation system which has made Egypt prosperous and brought it out of bankruptcy to solvency, has a hundred-million-dollar scheme well worked out, involving a new channel for the Nile, 280 miles, which will solve the whole problem of the supply of water, both to the Soudan and to Egypt, and which will make all these thousands of miles of country, which has hitherto been a desert, blossom like the rose.

The Egyptian cotton has long commanded a premium in the world’s markets; that of tho Soudan is as good or better. An American has bought 50,000 acres near Berber upon which to make the demonstration that will convince the world; tho Arab and Greek capitalists of Khartoum are eager to begin the raising of cotton, sugar-cane, india-rubber and durra; grain in the Nile valley may be grown m untold quantities; tropical fruits of every variety produced; wheat, the finest in the world, can be raised upon the higher lands. Indeed; who can doubt that, under the beneficent rule which

has finally come, and oomo to stay, the swords have really been beaten into ploughshares and the spears into prun.-ing-hooks?