CRIME IN EGYPT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12282, 8 July 1914, Page 1

CRIME IN EGYPT.

JUDICIAL ADVISEE'S REPORT. Sir Malcolm M'llwraith, the Judicial Adviser to the Egyptian Government, recently issued his report for the year 1913. ' J _. . Perhaps the most important section is that dealing with crime. Sir Malcolm M'lhvraith describes in. a characteristically' lucid manner the peculiar condition of affairs that lias led to the. continuous rise in crimes and serious misdemeanors which has unhappily been a marked feature of these reports for several vears past. Crimes, which totalled 3S2S cases in 1909, increased to 4096 In 1913, while in the same period misdemeanors increased by 13,932 cases to 92,938 cases. The Judicial Adviser writes: — Poverty —the cause of so much crime in .Europe—can scarcely be said tcy be the origin of so much of it here, iho grinding penury. which is so common a feature in large centres ox population in Europe hardly exists in Egypt. The iirst necessaries of life —feed and shelter —-are within reach of all. Cold and inclement weather, which add such poignancy to the sufferings of the submerged class in other countries, are almost unknown in this favored climate. The habitual charity of the people towards each other is sucli that the terrors of complete destitution are not to he found among them. Though poverty its direst forms is little met with, the standard of wealth among the agricultural classes is not high, and rapacity and greed are as rife among xhem as among the peasantry of other nations. These characteristics have been stimulated by the economic, conditions prevailing "during the last few years' m Egypt. . Murder, again, on the spur of the moment for -some quite trifling provocation, as is so common in Egypt, especially in the south, cannot- be put down by" law. A change in the temperament of the people which—as has so frequently been observed —the spread ot education mav be expected to produce can alone diminish the number of such deeds. The same induces the people to commit .murder in order ±o avenge j lapses from virtue on. the part of their I it'omenldnd. . \ _ In past times communal responsibility was enforced, and it was generally found to be to the advantage of thecomnvunitv to hand over the evil-doers to the. authorities as speedily as possible. With the advance of civilisation such methods are no longer Available, and repression lias to be confined within the four corners of the law. . . Far from having any particular interest in the suppression "and detection of crime, the fellah has some powerful motives for adopting an attitude of complete detachment towards it. Not only is he imbued, like all rustics, with a vague distrust of the law, as an inbomprehensible and powerful machine with which it is highly dangerous "to meddle, but he. knows from experience that ■to volunteer evidence against 'wrongdoers often entails long absence from his work. Add to this the danger of retaliation on the part of the friends of the -accused, and the fact that ho frequently finds that silence- —for. him —is golden in more senses than one. and it will not be wondered at tliat tile fellah shows a strong disinclination to have anything whatever to do with the administration of the criminal law.