EGYPT.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5516, 24 October 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

EGYPT.

CAUSES OF UNREST. WIDESPREAD REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT, In view of the recent cable messages indicating that the situation in Egypt is still very disturbed, a transcript of a lecture given to officers and men at Kantart in April last by a General Staff Officer upon the outbreak about that time is of particular interest. The lecture contained a masterful and well-informed review of conditions in Egypt ever since the British occupation about 40 years ago.

At that time, said the lecturer, Mr. Gladstone promised England, Egypt, and Europe generally, that the occupation would at any rate be of short duration. There were certain definite aims, and it was believed that these could be accomplished within no longer period of time. The three main tasks which lay before the British were these:—(.l) To support the Khedival Government, which was hopelessly inept, and shaken by rebellion headed by the national army-; (2) to restore to solvency a country naturally rich but reduced to complete bankruptcy by the follies and extravagance of its rulers; (3) to raise up from amongst the Egyptians themselves a class able to undertake unaided, and to carry out successfully, the government of their own country. The first of the objects was easily- secured by the defeat of the rebellious Egyptian forces. The second was necessarily slower of accomplishment, but the success achieved had been very great. Agriculture had been developed, new industries had been created, and now, not only was Egypt solvent, but, for her size, she was, as nature intended her to be, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But in the third object we had failed. We had not succeeded in raising up a class of responsible men fit to govern their own country. For many years we had to meet the opposition of the French Government, and still more the French residents in Egypt, who resented seeing the British where, had they chosen, they could have been themselves. Their attitude reacted upon the natives in a manner most unfavourable to ourselves. This opposition was brought to an end by the establishment of the Entente in 1902, but the effects could be seen in the present trouble. OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS.

The lecturer showed how Egyptian progress had been hampered by the maintenance of the capitulations,, under which foreign criminals appeared before special courts of their own, being thereby virtually exempt from the common law of the country, and by the absence of a regular civil service—both of which were due to the undefined position held by Great Britain. He showed also how natives who had no regard for efficiency thirsted for authority, which they were incapable of wisely exercising. The great ambition of the Egyptians to enter the Government service, combined with the cramming education system, had produced a group of disappointed and discontented young men, semieducated and largely unemployable, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by the overthrow of the Government from which they were excluded. This group formed the nucleus of the Nationalist Party. Five years ago this party was a small one. To-day it appeared to embrace the whole people of Egypt. Obviously there had been new cause-3 at work.

When Turkey declared war on the Entente, Gi’eat Britain declared a protectorate over Egypt, in order to sever the last weak link binding Egypt to Turkey, to get rid of the Khedive Abbas Hilmy, who was in Constinople at the outbreak of the war, and had thrown in his lot with the Turks; and as protecting Power, to abolish the old evil of the capitulations, giving foreign powers the guarantee of British control, and to carry out other reforms. The change was not popular. The Khedive, who had been deservedly hated for his corruption and oppression by the whole country, suddenly became a national martyr; and the new Sultan, Hussein Kamel Pasha, who had been deservedly respected, was held up to execration as a traitor. Zaghlul Pasha, head of the Nationalist Party, professed to believe that the protectorate was only a war measure, which would cease automatically with the conclusion of peace. When the armistice was signed he declared that the protectorate lapsed, and demanded that the British should forthwith evacuate Egypt, and that he should be allowed to go to Egypt as an accredited representative of Egypt, and to plead for complete independence. The refusal of this brought about the resignation of the Premier, Rushdy Pasha, who was no partisan of Zaghlul, but disapproved of the prohibition of the mission, and himself wanted to go to London to get the protectorate defined, but had also been requested to postpone his visit. No new ministry could be formed.

REVOLUTION PLANNED,

It was then discovered that the Nationalist party was preparing a general movement, intended to intimidate the British in Egypt. Apparently the revolution was timed for July or August, when the army of occupation might have been reduced to something like its pre-war strength of one British brigade. The leaders were arrested, and at once the outbreak followed- It was serious enough, but it was only partial. How much worse it would have been had the preparations been complete wass hown by the form which it assumed. There were not haphazard riots by ignorant peasants, but wellplanned and skillfully executed attacks upon lines of communication. Everywhere the hand of the educated conspirator could be seen at work. What took by surprise most even of those foreigners who knew Egypt the best was that every section of the community seemed to be implicated. There were various reasons for this apparent unanimity. Though the actual German conspirators w T ho were at work before the

war had gone, German money continued to be spent and German, agents were at work. The pro-Turk-ish element was still strong. A further cause of disorder was Bolshevist propaganda, spread by a small body of low-class foreigners, to whom must be attributed some of the worst features of the outbreak. To the fanatical pupils of El Azar University it seemed that the collapse of Turkey threatened the Moslem faith, and the discontented students eagerly took up the catchword of liberalism, - which they could ill understand, and adopted “Egypt for the Egyptians” as a battle cry, which they thought was bound to win the sympathies of the United States. These factors, combined with the intimidation of State employees,, brought about a unanimity more superficial than real. The lecturer alsos howed how the peasants had been antagonised by the corrupt methods in recruiting and requisitioning employed by Egyptian officials who were left in authority through the British officials being withdrawn for active service.

In the face of the general demand in Egypt that the British should leave, could they stop? Great Britain was bound to stop. We had not educated a class capable of carrying on the Government, and until that was done we had no right to go. Our departure would be the signal for such a reign of tyranny and corruption as called for our original interference, and we should either have to take up again at a reavy disadvantage a duty dishonourably shirked, or we should have to see another foreign Power step in. There were also more material and selfish arguments. The Suez Canal was the main reason why we could not afford to see Egypt in the hands of a Power which, in time of crisis, might be hostile to us. The German submarines in the Mediterranean showed how serious a position might be created by a partial interference with our short sea lines of communication with India, East Africa, and Australia. Strategically we were obliged to control the canal, and as it was international, that control must be indirect through the Government of Egypt- There were also financial considerations. Our system of irrigation required constant and careful control, and its removal would ruin the crops. Furthermore, no British, or foreign financiers would invest their money in Egypt. The cotton industry would collapse, ruining Egypt and dealing a severe blow at the commercial prosperity of Lancashire.

If we were to stop in Egypt, and attain the objects we had in view there, the only possible policy was that of conciliation. The release of the Nationalist leaders won for us the support even of those foreign elements which had at first been inclined, with more generosity than understanding, to sympathise with, the specious demands of Egyptian Nationalists. It also, though not so obviously, won back the support of the more sober element in Egypt itself. Permission for the delegates to go to Paris could do us no harm; it was known then, and subsequent events have proved, that France and America were no less ready than, ourselves to appreciatct he necessity for a British protectorate over Egypt. Egypt would not look in. vain to Great Britain for reforms. The abolition of capitulations, the reform of the education system, and the purging of the Civil Service were promised. A commission was also to investigate the still wider questions.

THREATENED MASSACRE. The lacturer stated that the campaign of violence started by the Nationalists had to be put down, and it was put down severely. The moderate elements, who called out the mob, soon lost control. The political programme was forgotten, and the mob, which had once tasted blood, wanted more. They began by murdering Armenians and Greeks, and openly threatened to do _ the same by Jews and Syrians. British officers and men found unarmed aipJ alone were murdered. W hat threatened Egypt was no longer a revolution but a wholesale massacde of foreigners. This was only prevented by a firmness which at times had to be severe. That this severity did not degenerate into indiscriminate retribution, which would have wrecked the Commander-in-Chief’s policy of conciliation, was due to the attitude of the troops-