TRAGIC EVENTS IN EGYPT.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 151034, 28 July 1919, Page 2

TRAGIC EVENTS IN EGYPT.

SS hJ cou? tr>', ™d some of them are bnuging tee impression that the whole, wutu has not been told to the _ "So far as wo are able to judge uo important episode of the insurrection mia been concealed at the .instance uf tie iorejgn Office. If the contrary aea prevails it is largely due to the ship m Egyp t> whlch eyer since has been the most incompetent, the most mept, and the most savagely under British control, not excepting Mesopotamia. The consequence is thaf eyery_ statement which passes its scruboth in Cairo and in a aZ? 1! 6 E£ Pt X °nC6 mOre without a Ministry, the strike of the public services has collapsed. Two factors arclikely to handicap the restoration of prdmary conditions. One is the great amount of destruction on the railways which' is far worse than was at first behoved, and the. other is the release of storage water m the Nile, which will gravely affect the nest crops. The rioters have everywhere destroyed the telegraph lmes.and instruments, a clear feftth- t tIA% SW?r m- °f stTldonts *"° 10th™JIf Ujllvers% on March 10th, and scattered throughout the country, bearing the call to rebellion! had been carefully instructed in the art of paralysing an administration. The \ bni aCt"sk ntTt t '6 a^ wi be" a I | tS^T Ihe. str«ments have been J smashed especially in the railway stations and poles beyond computation have been destroyed. Minti 1 rth*+tVid^ nee.aS reeß that tlie Ministry of the Interior was singularly £ w U?i? U* °f touch,with the coun- I t y, but this was partly due to the fact I that war. demands" had destroyed the efficiency of the British branc/of the Uvil Semce. The provinces were drained of British officials and left to their own devices. The Egyptian subordinates gradually enteric upon an I um-y + ? corr £ uPfccm which recalled the,1! worst days of Esmail, but was neither' recognised nor checked. They were j actuated partly by avarice, and partiy by a malicious desire to inflame the popuJace against British control ;+ ;= +y s"C-eecled only to° well, and +r if 7 '-¥?'■ ProlonSed and uneon-j trolled machinations that we owe the i transformation of the."feUaheen into aH ™I? 1C1°"S and virulently hostile peas-lj l! 1?;, i<or every recruit required for If Su^l \r?v f ? S th° Egyptian- officials i 1 i + twenty or thirty men, gener- I ■'■???■ all but one, I and sent.thcs odd man, often a persona jeered the food stocks of the. peasantry i at .Aimy j-ates, and then forced th^m ! to buy gl - ain and ofcher f(jod flt high prices from profiteers with whom ! I for^i^'Tn 111 lofl gUo- The collections t nJo+Man^ ble +l and purposes eon-: neetod with the war were used to ox- 6 ££ iftSr 8 / OmJ¥ ign°rant P eople <' * Cairo.'' Ch Cver relied "J m ;n«?«° n Anarnos' .^aching in West-!? minster Abbey, said: j ? j-J'^^l thrc"n ?*a'™ wo nrnctirnllr'i S 6onr «?T WOiy Praisedthe beneficence * 'with revolt. Most of our newspapers ' - ■ *. ■ ' .

were silent, but some told truths generally admitted in private conversation, that British agents resorted during the war to forced labour to build the lines of communication into Palestine. The compulsion was indirect, but.natives were taken on an enormous scale. Further, it was alleged that, as in Mesopotamia, the medical service proved inadequate and a heavy mortality resulted."