The Egyptian Negotiations The reports from Cairo, and the arrival
there of one of the legal advisers to the Foreign Office, give ground for hope that the conclusion of an Anglo-Egyptian treaty is now imminent. It is not the fault of the British Government that the promised agreement " by free discussion and friendly accommodation on both sides " on the questions reserved under the 1922 Declaration has been so long delayed. Of the two main questions still at issue, the protection of foreigners and foreign interests in Egypt cannot be disposed of in an Anglo- Egyptian treaty. But the maintenance of the capitula- tions in Egypt when they have crumbled everywhere else in the Near East has become a moral impossibility ; and there is little doubt that other Powers concerned will be content to follow the British lead. The defence of Egypt and of the Suez Canal is a matter on which compromise should not be difficult. Egypt recognises better than anybody that her own military strength is an insufficient protection ; and this realisation will have been intensified by recent events uncomfortably near her borders. The gradual withdrawal of British troops from Cairo and the interior should, on the other hand, not prejudice essential British interests, and will be a welcome concession to Egypt's desire to be mistress in her own house. The principle announced to the world by the British Government on the termination of the Protectorate that " the welfare and integrity of Egypt are necessary to the peace and safety of the British Empire " remains, of course, an integral part of British policy. But this is an Egyptian as well as a British interest.
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