EGYPT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13433, 26 March 1907, Page 5

EGYPT.

THE KHEDIVE AND HOME RULE.

EGYPTIANS VERY FOND OF THE FRENCH.

United Press Association — By Electric >? Telegraph. — Copyright. CAIRO, March 25. The Khedive (Abbas Hilmi) informed a* French journalist that the Egyptians are highly intelligent and quite capable of managing their own concerns. He denied that the National claims assumed" the form of an anti-foreign, fanatical movement, and repudiated any desire to become a despot. He declared the Egyptians wore very fond of the French, and hoped they would come to Egypt in large numbers, despite the entente with Britain. ' LONDON, March 20. The Times warns Abbas Hilmi that |he had better display his devotion to ! his country by not permitting favouritism or corruption, to be, rife in the pubi lie departments that fall under his control. -

(Egypt is nominally dependent on Turkey. From 1879 to 1883 the country was ;under ithe dual control of France and Great Britain, but in, the latter year Britain intervened after Arabi Pasha's rebellion, and since then has practically governed the country. The British occupation, at first regarded as temporary,' has by force of circumstances beconie firmly established, and the predominant, position of Great Britain was formally recognised by France by the Anglo-French Agreement signed on April Bth, 1904. The feeling of unrest in Egypt is no new thing. In the House of Commons in July of last year, Sir Edward Grey, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, deemed it necessary to state, with a full sense of responsibility, that if the House of Commons ,did anything to weaken or destroy the .authority of the Government in Egypt they w,ould be face to face with a very serious question. The sympathies of the Moslem population of Egypt are naturally with the Sultan of Turkey, as was shown during the Tabah incident, and any form of "home rule" is totally out of the question.)