PROBLEMS OF LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18643, 21 December 1928, Page 3

PROBLEMS OF LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.

AN EGYPTIAN OFFICIAL TELLS OF RECENT EVENTS AND RULERS OF EGYPT. History is made of hours, practical, raw: By devious ways, by one, is history told And set result like images of clay. Symbolic gods, hardens for all to scan: Hough consequence of all the life of The blunt slow shaping of the common Scratched on cave chambers, cut on slabs of gold, Pulped to a page, contracted to a day . . "Egypt,” by Dorothy Wellesley (The "London Mercury.”) Egypt from the time of the Pharaohs has always been a country/full of interest and surprises. Since the days of the British Occupation that interest has been sustained and intensified. Egypt is a land of paradox. Through the long ages of her history in its varied phases the more she has changed, the more she has remained the same. The froth of political ferment has come to the surface and been blown away again; but the tiller of the soil, the man in the blue “galabieh” has like the soil remained unchanged. The rulers of Egypt have always been foreigners—Pharaohs, Greeks, Romans or Turks, they all exploited her. It was not till the British occupation of the country that she became acquainted with the first rudiments of justice.

“The Egyptian Enigma (1890-1928)” (John Murray, 10s 6d), by J .E. Marshall, late Judge in the Egyptian Court of Appeal, gives a comprehensive survey of the course of events since the British Occupation to the present time. Through the experiences first of his private practice, and later of his official position in Egypt, the author has a knowledge of the management and mismanagement of affairs in Egypt, and is able to give an acute analysis of the psychological forces at work in the periodical Nationalist upheavals. While this is a book in which the political student will find food for thought and instruction, the element of human interest it contains will give much pleasure to the general reader. There are some intersting sidelights on the course of justice in Egypt. In the good old days before the lazy, kindly old Ibrahim Faud Pasha was made Minister of Justice as President of the Alexandria Court of the First Instance, he went on two occasions to try offences against by-laws in the Contravention Court. Each day there were between 150 and 200 cases. This was his method of dealing with them: “ On the first day. Ibrahim Faud had all the defendants ushered into the Court, and -without asking them a question. or hearing the charges against them, he said, ‘All acquitted! ’ On the second occasion he followed the same procedure, but fined them all one shilling.” Yet Ibrahim Faud was an ideal Minister for his time. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. The autfior of the book is imbued with a profound admiration for the work of Lord Cromer in Egypt, work which unfortunately has not been followed up as it might have been, but has often been undone through insufficient grasp of the requirements and the psychology of the Egvptian. Lord Cromer went to Egypt in 1883, ostensibly as British Consul-General; but really as virtual ruler of the land. The task which confronted him was tremendous. He had received no general instructions; he did not ask for any. He decided each question as it arose. The Egyptians knew the sort of man they had to deal with, and they respected him. “ Eighteen years after Lord Cromer left Egypt, to tell the cabman to go to the Dar-al-Himaiya or the Wokalaal-Britannia was quite hopeless. He simply stared in blank ignorance. One had to say: ‘Go to Lord I'romer's!’ Then he knew at once.” Such was his impression on Egypt. Well might he be remembered for his work was manifold. He steered the Egyptian ship of *tate through the breakers into a haven of safety. He instituted financial and judicial reforms; abolished the “ courbash ” (an instrument of torture to extract confessions), and the “corvee” (forced labour without pay, which had been in existence since the time of the Pharaohs) ; eliminated bribery as much as possible from the conduct of public affairs; introduced irrigation ; reformed prisons: abolished domestic slavery: re-modelled the police system, hospitals., asylums, and schools. He recognised that the only way to graft true civilisation on a society just emerging from was not only td educate, but to elevate the Egyptian woman.

“It was difficult to believe that constant contact with a number of highminded Europeans, the example afforded by the elevated standard of thought from which all social and administrative questions are approached would not have its effect. The abolition of barbarous punishments, the suppression <->f forced labour and torture, the introduction of new ideas that the rights of property are sacred and that all men are equal in the eyes of the law, the practical abolition of slavery, the discouragement of nepotism, the stigma attached to the worst kinds of vice, all these things were*bound to have their effect on the Egyptian mind. The fact that the Egvptian social and political atmosphere had been charged with ideas which should act as antidotes against moral degradation must contribute in some degree to a partial assimilation of Lie best European code of morals.” It must lie admitted that Lord Cromer was a difficult man to fallow, and his successors were not able cO maintain the high standard set by him Sir Eldon Gorst. though possessing great qualities, was not a good judge •f men. lie was succeeded by Lord. Kitchener. “Kitchener came to the Agency wiln p. great reputation, as was already well known to most of the people who mattered in Egypt. He had already be-in Sirdar of the Egyptian Army, gaining thereby an expensive knowledge of th/ country, yet one had the feeling that the natives, having watched him, as it were, out of the corners of their eyes, accurately took his measure as a statesman and not infrequently hoodwinked Bim. . Kitchener never consider #d any future eventuality; he only dealt with matters that had actually

matured. It was very characteristic of the man.” When Great Britain's veiled Protectorate of over thirty years was transformed into an open Protectorate, in the author’s opinions a colossal mistake was made. He holds with Mustafa Pasha Fehmy, the best of Egypt’s few statesmen, that Egypt’s future welfare lay in her annexation to and inclusion in the British Empire. The choice of the word Protectorate was itself repugnant to the Egyptian, for its Arabic equivalent, was the term applied to sorts of scallywags who had, often by dubious means, become the subjects Of foreign Powers. The appointment of General Allenby after the revolution broke out in the spring of 1919 had little to recommend it. A lucky soldier, without any previous experience of the problematical East, he had to take up a post the most difficult in all our foreign relations. It I required not only the skill of a diplomatist and statesman, but also the crait • necessary to deal with Egyptian guile. “His usual reply to Egyptian delegations was, ‘I am here to maintain order’; and even that he did not succeed in doing in a way that commended itself to his fellow-countrymen and some of the thinking men amongst the Egyptians.” Lord Lloyd of Dolobram succeeded Allenby in 1925. This was one of the few acts of sanity on the part of the British Government towards Egypt in recent years. He is a very different man from Allenby, and although the Egyptians have watched him carefully they have not yet succeeded in taking his measure. Half the trouble in the mishandling of the Egyptian situation lies in a lack of understanding of the peculiar psvchology of the Egyptian. “ The error into which Macaulay fell when he thought to educate the Indians on British lines was fallen into in Egypt. It was hoped that by education the people w r ould acquire British minds and a British outlook, and that a race comparable to Victorian Liberals would be produced. Education has only taught them to defy us .. . But the Egyptian cannot be weighed in European scales; his history, his moral and intellectual attributes and his social customs contribute to establish a gulf between him and the European. He has his good points, but they show to most advantage when he is governed with firmness and justice, and the fear of wrong-doing has been put into his soul.” Germany had laid her schemes well and truly in Egypt prior to the war; unfortunate incidents during the war had shaken Egypt’s confidence in our justice and goodwill. Nationalism had permeated the official class and the upper ranks of the army and caught the imagination of the masses; but it was the Allied programme, and particularly Wilson’s fourteen points, that did most to stir Egypt after the war. She saw neighbouring states raised to independence and autonomy, and began to ask where she came in. To talk of the gradual attainment of nationhood, she replied that she already had this status. “No settlement of the future of Egypt which does not recognise this claim is ever likely to be accepted by the Egyptian people; it can only be imposed on them.” The difficulties of negotiation with Egyptians were fully demonstrated in the troublous days of the Milner Mission, yet, the author writes, “if ever the Egyptians are fortunate enough to get practical independence with security for the natives from outside aggression and the foreigner from inside oppression. it will be when the Milner scheme is adopted in its entirety.” “ The Canal turned Egypt into a corridor country. She became the highway between East and West and the neck of the British Empire. Out of a population of 400,000.000 of his Majesty’s subjects, 300.000.000 are East of Suez, and over 1,000.000 troops from Australia, India and New Zealand had to pass through Egypt during the war. Most people think that we must hold the Canal, but some think that we can evacuate Egypt provided we keep it open. But it would be quite impossible to garrison or maintain the Suez Canal for forty-eight hours unless we were in control of the Nile at Cairo. Neither Suez nor Port Said can exist unless the water diverted from the Nile in the neighbourhood of Cairo enters the fresh-water canal that runs alongside the salt-water Suez Canal . . The question of Egypt, the question of the Sudan, and the question of the Canal form an organic and indissoluble whole. They cannot be separated so long as there is a British Empire, to the maintenance of which they are a cardinal necessity.” After reading J. E. Marshall’s book it is not possible to be very optimistic about the solution of the Egyptian problem. The students and schoolboys who will be the men of the future have been led astray. With no great leader, the demagogue prevails in Egypt, and while this is the case the recurrence of political instability must be anticipated. The Foreign Office, lacking the knowledge of the Egyptian psychology should support rather than direct the man on the spot, but that man must be the right man. The author assures us that the right man is Lord Lloyd.