Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6997, 21 April 1884, Page 4

Thb telegrams published to-day serve to show the soundness of the policy Gordon Pasha has persistently tainedi —the necessity of holding tfo Eastern Soudan : against the forces of gj Mahdi. Both he and Sir Samuel Bafc tt have agreed from the commencement of this Mahomedan insurrection that, Darfaur and .Kqrdcfan, , or . Western Soudan, must be abandoned as uaeles. the retention of Eastern Soudan was in' dispensable to the safety and government of Egypt'. And not only bo, they decidedly expressed it as their opinion that if that country were evacuated in tv. presence of a conquering Mahomedan power a dangerous fermentation would ba excited, not only in the cities of Egypt, but also in Arabia and Syria, and amon» the Mahomedan population of India, »n| might even have the effect of. reopening the whole Eastern question. E?eh befoi* Gordon embarked on his mission to Khartoum, placards had been posted in Damascus calling upon the population to rise and drive out the Turks as being in .alliance with and under the sway of tha Infidel. And now we learn that simile attempts have been made in the Bombay Presidency to excite the Mussulman there to join El Mahdi's ranks againi; England's supremacy. The seizure br the police of large quantities of printed proclamations to this effect and bearing El Mahdi'a signature Bhows how widespread the feeling is .which underlay tha Soudan - rebellion, and how imp or , cans it was to effectually check it in the sphere of its outbreak. Tha temporitms with it at the outset in leaving it to the Egyptian Government to suppress it by the despatch of unreliable native troops was the very beat means that could have been taken to faq the fame that had been kindled, and make it spread far beyond the place of its origin. -The successes which the rebels so easily obtained over these forces vera pregnant with the gr&vest consequences to the influence and interests of Britais, both in Egypt and elsewhere. The tardy despatch of a British expedition to Sotu. kim, and the defeats inflicted on Osman Digna tended so far to avert these consequences, and if at the ' sama time military assistance . had bees sent to Gordon at Khartoum, the 1

prestige of England in Egypt and generally throughout the East would have been confirmed and increased. Bat even despite the neglect of that obvious duty, the determination of ' Gordon Pasha to remain at his post has gone iar towardi securing this end. By simply holding his ground he has contrived to break the power of El Mahdi. If the intelligence reported from Cairo as coming from him prove true, it will show that the spirit of loyalty is gathering strength/among some of the Arab tribes, and that from being a conquering hero the Prophet is obliged to act on the defensive. It will shoir, as Gordon has always maintained, that by' diplomacy, if possible, but by force if need were. Khartoum was the place where the rebellion mast be suppressed and the pacification of the Soudan effeateS.