POSITION IN EGYPT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19218, 8 July 1924, Page 8

POSITION IN EGYPT.

ZAGJILUL AND HIS FOLLOWERS. (Correspondent Manchester Guardian.) When, in January last, the elections of the Lower House resulted in tiic overwhelming victory of Saad Paelia ZughluL and his party, the programme which he laid. down comprised the droit naturol of real independence of Egypt and tho budan, together with respect for foreign interests which were not in contradiction to that independence ; the release of political prisoners; repudiation of various engagements and lawn adopted since the dissolution of the AiCgislativo Assembly in 1914 ; reform of financial, administrative, and educational affairs; and attention to public health and public security. . Tho present Government came into power imbued with an invincible suspicion of the acts and intentions o£ their predecessors, nud yet, in point of fact, their predecessors prepared the way for them. The Ministry of Ye hi,'. Pasha Ibrahim, Saad Pashas iiumediaio predecessor, was largely responsible for his own release. It promulgated the Constitution, one of the most important documents of modern lames, in accordance with the terms of which the present Government exists. It enacted the electoral Law, by means of which faaad Pashas par y achieved its triumph. It appointed ambassadors and consuls to foreign States. It established a law for the liquidation o. the positions of foreign officials, m the mutual interests of themselves and tho Egyptian Government. And it was during this time that martial law was abolished. Since the advent of the /.aghluliat part) to power, its actions have principally consisted in the negative process ot undoing what has been done before; and*this is natural enough, as time is necessary tor positive work. Mudire and high officials have been dismissed whose political bias has been objectionable. The motor car allowance o tho Ministers themselves has been cancelled. All promotions have been, arrested in tns Civil Services. An Economy Committee. haa been appointed. Some 140 political pnso ne,a have been released on the bean geste of Mr Ramsay MacDonald. RELATIONS WITH THE LABOUR _ PAIU.Y. Tho release of the political prisoners produced the greatest joy in Egypt. ahe , ish Labour Government has nevertheless been contemplated with some suspicion ana Urn public has been warned not to expect too much. There is a tendency to ueny to England any privileged positioni m rm.ard t Egypt, but it is recognised that she has special interests which can 'only be reconciled with those of Egypt herself by nego tiation. .apart from the newspapers thinkin a Egyptians go so far as to say that they cannot foresee the future of Egypt an alliance of some sort with Great fcutain. When, however, Mr MacDonald stated in the House ot Commons, on h eb ™ ar 7 hist that ho considered himself bound by the Declaration of February 28 1922 until another arrangement was adopted, the quarre-at-any-pnee party in Egypt were disnosed 10 make as much ot the incident a possible. Zaghlul Pasha, as a kept his counsel, seeing in the incident nothing that Egypt need take exception to. CURBING POPULAR EXUBERANCES. It was at this moment that Saad Pasha Zr-hlui showed signs of tiring of tho_ perpetual ovations, acclamations deputation speech-makings, and would-bo students) to which he had so lorn, been subjected by his zealous adherents. There are forces at work which are only too anxious to use this love oi demonstration' in mobs, for political ends more extreme than tho Governments own, and even Trains* them, Nationalistic factions ha arisen which, so far as Zaghlul Pasha is concerned, are mere royalist than the and watch him closely. A Communistic Party has sprung up in Egypt with a programme which includes the recognition of the Soviets and the usual admixture ot scumble and revolutionary aims; certain students have been sent by it to a Bolshevist senool in Moscow, and the Government has been investigating the organisation arresting the ringleaders and searching their homes. In several of the large factories labour tioubit has sprung up, and workmen have seized the factorv, to be at length conciliated and induced to withdraw. Tho temper cf the men in certain of the Government workshops is not all that it might be and was And. further, organisation appears to going on in order to bring pressure to bear, by way of demonstrations, not only vuoi the Egyptian Government but upon the Bntisli = authoritics, in the event of dl ® in tho negotiations between them. It the present Egyptian Government were not indisposed to avail tnemselves of this de monstrative tendency ot their countrymen in the past, they nevertheless appear to re-co-niso that in the c. nditions which obtain to-day it is imperative in the national in I,2 Great o and b difficult problems lie before Ecr-pt, and her greatest statesman, the only man capable of combining her people and RacVnr them into the new era, is old and, he himself has sain with pathos, is endowed with poor health and little strength.