THE SOUDAN EXPEDITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10083, 19 March 1896, Page 4

THE SOUDAN EXPEDITION.

The quietness with which the expedition to Dongola, in Upper Egypt, lias been sprung on the world, shows how little anticipation we have of the direction from which the peace of the world may be. suddenly menaced. There can be uo doubt; that this expedition is the reopening of the conquest of the Soudan, and that it has in it the elements by which the whole world may be embroiled. It has been brought about apparently by the aggressive movements of the Dervishes, but the points said to be menaced by them, from Dongola to Kassula, and the intimation given of the possible advance of England in conjunction with Italy into Darfur, in tho remote Central Soudan, seem to show the intention of reconquering the upper waters of the Nile far away beyond Khartoum and the other points whose names became familiar to us as household words in the former Soudanese campaign. The objective point of the present expedition, Dongola, some 750 miles above Cairo, was the base of the British operations on that occasion in the Soudan, but was subsequently abandoned to the Mahdi on the withdrawal of the troops and the Egyptian boundary to Wadi Haifa. Supposing, then, that this advance on the Soudan has been necessitated by attacks of the Dervishes, the operations now undertaken, like the troubles in the Transvaal, are the legacy entailed by the policy of scuttle" and "peace at any price," which, under a former Government in England, has proved so costly. But this expedition seems invested with dangers from which the former expedition into the, Soudan was free. hen all Europe watched with interest and without jealousy the eflorts of a civilised Power in subduing barbarism and establishing settled government over a slave-hunting fanatical race. Now France views this advance with jealousy, as indefinitely postponing the evacuation of Egypt by England, and ■at) not improbably strengthening the

occupation for all time; whil„~7. honours conferred by the ]!,, J1 \, th < on the King of Abyssinia 0 i- P !- n 7; " to the Italians, who are palnahh Sta "f e ing in concert and co-LS WOrk " England, present an unpleasant ? 7' th tion of a desire of the L? v !' ca ' Power to seriously intervene in °», . ern The characteristically ungraemn ' unfriendly statement gratuitously^ by he German Emperor to the ff that Germany only recognise,! Rril I protection in Egypt >ls limited 7? garrison in Cairo, adds to the a pleasantness of the situation ' , i everything combines to? show £ trouble is brewing 0 f a more -en, kind than ever w !US shadow, ,1 f 0 from Venezuela or Transvaal, or p r ' bably even from Armenia. '