Port Said
AYBODY who feels surprised and shocked that N the Egyptians should have thought up the macabre notion of a Moorhouse Museum should study the preface to John Bull's Other Island. In it, Shaw describes what happened to the inhabi- tants of an Egyptian village after an assault on a party of English officers—an assault which the officers by their actions and conduct had brought upon themselves. Shaw's scathing account deserves to be read at any time in its own right as an indictment of that brand of imperialism which, in Shaw's words, 'goes stark mad at the periphery' whenever a pin drops; but it is particularly appo- site at present, in view of the hysteria in the Beaverbrook press (quickly copied in the Mail, which still cannot rid itself of the notion that it must attach itself to the Express's coat-tails). The story is not a pleasant one; but it should explain why, if Egyptians exhibit unpleasant charac- teristics when puffed up with jingoistic self- importance, we should not blame them : we taught them how.
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