NEW EGYPTIAN REGIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18041, 16 March 1922, Page 5

NEW EGYPTIAN REGIME.

POSITION OP ZAGHLUL.

TO BE KEPT IN EXILE. A. DANGER TO PEACE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received 4.30 p.m.) A, and N.Z. LONDON, March 14. In the House of Commons, Mr. W. Wedgwood Benn (Liberal) raised the Egyptian question. He said that the Government, having new conceded Zaghlul Pasha's demands, what was it going to do about that " patriot?"

Mr. Austen Chamberlain, replying, recalled that Zaghlul'B record was very bad.: He was a follower of Arabi Pasha, was an open sympathiser with Turkey during the war, and was t'he initiator of a violent campaign which terminated in the disturbances of March, 1919. A sigh of relief was breathed when he was depprted. He would not be brought back while there i was danger to the peace of Egypt.

ZAGHLUL'9 VARIED CAREER.

FROM JUDGE TO AGITATOR.

The record of Zaghlul Pasha, the Egyptian Nationalist leader, who was deported last December, is thus reviewed by " One who knows him " in the London Morning Post :— "Two questions may have suggested themselves to readers of the current Egyptian news. First, what has an exJuike and lawyer, like Zaghlul, to do with political riot and agitation? and, next, How did he attain his present influence' " It is hardly a mere coincidence that fo- many vears past one member of the native Bench or legal officialdom after another has become a Minister and politician. In the new sphere he has generally also renewed hositilities with old colleagues on the Bench. One of these transferees was Zaghlul. Material for estimating his exact value as a Minister would be hard to come by, but a story that nmused Cairo for a season may be mentioned. After he had left the Ministry of Public Instruction the results of an annual examination, under his successor, were angrilv challenged by some of the rejected. These accounted for their own failure by stating that advance copies of the question-papers ad been somehow secured bv the successful, while they had failed to do so Tim yarn proved to be as true as it appeared grotesque. After the inevitable official disclnimers and threats of future severity had subsided another rumour became current. _ It ap peared from the Ministerial archives, that all this had occurred before, in Zaghlul's time. It had then been reported, investigated, and officially buried.

Lavish and Luxurious Habits.

"In the administrative atmosphere which I have attempted to desrribe, an ambitions judge, yearning for money and advancement, would naturally look outside the walls of his court. This is precisely what Zagblul did. The son of a fellah he became a barefooted student of the El Azhar Mosque. The theological training which he received there coloured the whole of his subsequent career. He developed a considerable power of speaking, and was credited with having amassed money early in life " But here his noted lavish and luxurious habits must be borno in mind before striking a balance. A new house of his was furnished throughout with the most expensive locks, bolts, and door hinges made expressly for him in England. Agah, the delegation he took to Paris is state! to have begun work with a sum of £'JOO,OOO, and to have returned penniless to Egypt, after two years. But to resume. There is no doubt that his services as an advocate were in great request with native litigants, who scon learnt to see in him a champion of Islam. When he became a Judge in the Native Courts, and the colleague of Europeans, a new chapter of his life and influence opened. To the Europeans he displayed a singular faculty of hair-splitting, conveyed in an ex-cathedra style, appropriate to his personal bulk, and couched In comically pronounced, but extremely voluble, French. His native brethren on the Bench were frankly afraid of his violence of expression and demeanour, and distrustful of his methods. Bome of them certainly believed that their differing from any judgment of his would be denounced, out of Court, as infidelity to the faith. It is certainly in this region of activity that the source of his future vogue is to be found. Spokesman of militant Islam. " Lord Cromer's fateful decision against the creation of a Judiciary strong enough to resist official pressure had almost immediate results. While it openefl wide the doors of general ambition to lawyers of Zaghhil's type and temperament, it shut ont for ever the co-opera-tion of a far more valuable, if less noisy and provocative class.

"The foregoing sketch should suffice for a brief summing up of Z'ghM's adventures to date. As a Judge he was soon treated as a pjwiallv privOeeed person. The general fear felt for him bv his colleagues emboldened him to come out as a spokesman of the militant religions party. He would claim that Christian a?m'nst a Moslem accused of m"rdp,r should not be heard at all. ... He has bad the haling nf mnrh money. He has cost England and Eiivnt bneye sums for the nreservntion nf h»man life and puhlie order during his several atrita-tions. He hag been ' the fnirlfiman of armed reMs a<raiupt the Kinc's, PrntMorote, and a«ainst W« immpdiV? RovwioTi, the S"Hori. H° has been the avowed affent of Ahbaq Pnohl, dethroned aftor a hr\* career nf intriffno and corruption. and hv rntwnt o"» of tv>e rnnof rh<" , af , t.p'<i in TWtv t.ion historv. Ho hns hnri to Mn"a. and Mwdilv reW°pd to murk a rhnrtcrp in fhp wind f" '■""'* eonn+i'w Ml tho'P tMnrtQ p(> h">S cnrvi'vpd to ViVt Pin's ««•' T,r>Tidnn in eon''i , i n ns of lavish fw<r luxury, and every form of official flattery."