EGYPTIAN NATIONALISM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18144, 9 July 1919, Page 8

EGYPTIAN NATIONALISM.

SET AFLAME BY GERMAN

PROPAGANDA

THE PERILS TO WHICH BRITAIN

HAS AWAKENED,

Adroit misuse of President Wilson’s idealistic doctrines of sell-determin-ation by agents of Prince liueiow’s cleverly engineered and liberally financed propaganda against the Entente is responseoio tor the extraordinary recrudescence oi nationalism in Egypt.

Having been present nt the birth of Egyptian nationalism just forty years ago I have always followed its movements with a certain amount of interest. It uas first brought into existence by that wicked, extravagant, but witty and altogether charming Khedi?e Ismail. When in the face of the extraordinary revelations of the international commission of inquiry into tho Augean stable of Egyptian finance He found that he no longer could pursue his favourite policy of playing off one foreign Power against another, since they had been compelled by the shocking disclosures to unite in subjecting him to all sorts of restrictive measures, impairing his authority and depriving him of his mvot'en gains, with characteristic effrontery he donned the mantle of that particular brand of patriotism which “ is the last refuge of a scoundrel-” Nationalism was something utterly unknown in his dominions up to that time. He called it into life through an appeal to his people and to his army against the oppression of the infidel foreigners, for whose sole benefit, he contended, his subjects were 60 heavily burdened with taxes.

Some years ago Germany began to show her _ hand in Egypt. Baron Max Oppenheim, at one time a familiar figure in New York and Newport, was attached to tho German Legation at Cairo under the pretext of facilitating his alleged .irchseological researches.

Provided with apparently illimitable funds he devoted himself to cultivating the Nationalist leaders and to the development of their movement. Indeed during the regime of Sir Eldon Gorst Max Oppenheim contrived to do no end of harm to Great Britain through his German encouragement of Nationalism. He continued to do so even after Gorst’s death and the appointment of Lord Kitchener as his successor. Relations between Great Britain and Germany were quite the reverse of cordial in the period of 1910 to 1914. the one object of the statesmen of Europe at that time being to avert tho great war, tho prospect of which became every day more menacing. Had it not been for this Kitchener would have bundled Oppenheim neck and cron out of Egypt, notwithstanding his diplomatic immunities, which ho was misusing against the English. But that would have precipitated tho war, and no on© knew better) than Kitchoner how ill prepared England was for the inevitable conflict-

.Sir Reginald Wingate must have been very ill indeed in order to have permitted the recrudescence of Nationalism in Egypl It looks tatlier as.if tho English authorities in Egypt had permitted themselves to bo caught napping, since otherwise they would not have been demobilising their troops in Egypt and shipping them home as fast as possible instead of keeping them there to deal with what is now admitted to be a very grave peril. And yet they should have been warned. For before the month of January was well under way Egyptian Nationalism, financed and engineered by Prince Buelow’s German propaganda, once more had come to the surface, and had assumed such a remarkable development that the veteran Prime Minister, Hussein Rushdi Pasha, a loyal friend of England, resigned with believed to be the hopelessness of the his entire Cabinet, owing to what they situation.

They realised that the Nationalist movement was becoming general throughout the land, and that if they continued to fight it they would be regarded by their countrymen as sacrificing the interests of their nation and of their creed to an alien and infidel Power. They appreciated, too, that a oontinuance of the present form of the government of Egypt was quite impossible, and that each one of them was in hourly danger of sharing the fate of Boutros Pasha. Nor have the English been able to find any Egyptian statesman worthy of the name/\or meriting their confidence, willing to form or to take part in a new Administration. So that Egypt is to-day virtually without a Cabinet-. As at the time of the Arabi Pasha rebellion in 1862, the Nationalist, insurrection of to-day, adopting the war cry of “Egypt for the Egyptians,” demands complete freedom from that British control to which the country is indebted for such incalculable benefits and for such phenomenal prosperity. The Nationalists exact, ns thirty-seven years ago, tho repudiation of the foreign debt and conseque.nt relief from taxation, the nationalisation of all foreign property and industries in Egypt, the departure of every foreign official in Egyptian service, tho disappearance of every British soldier from Egyptian soil, and last but not least tho ownership and nationalisation, that is, the complete control, of the Suez Canal. Of gratitude to England for all sh 6 has done in behalf of the Egyptians there is none. The people are blind to the fact that Great Britain gave to thorn for the fisrt time in centuries safety of life and property and freedom from all tho horrors and cruelties and exactions of the worst forms of Moslem misrule. They forget that England diminished tlicir taxation by 60 per cent, that she trebled, and even quadrupled, tho cultivable area of the country bv means of marvellous works of irrigation, and that she had endowed ti, em with an altogether wonderful go on the basis that even admitting these to be benefits they would rather sacrifice them than receive them at alien hands- To what extent they are affected b- Bolshevik doctrines, with which they have so much in common, I am unablo to say with any degree of definiteness. But it is a fact that according to news received from Russia around Christmas time there were not only a number of Chinese and Hindus among the students of the great central college of Bolshevik doctrines at Moscow, but also a score of Egyptian Nationalists.