11 JUNE 1921, Page 15

EGYPT FOR THE EGYPTIANS.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " Seeeraros."]

Sin,—The valuable article in your issue of May 28th on the troubles in Egypt leads me to submit the following remarks. The trouble is economic and not political—one of housing and elbow-room rather than hatred of Christian Europeans. The native Moslems of Alexandria and Cairo are boxed up in their slums, which are adjacent to the lordly suburbs inhabited by the Christian Levantines and Jews who have made, and are making, fortunes out of the cotton crops grown by the Moslem peasants. Hundreds and thousands of Moslem vagabonds are ready to pour out and to make a disturbance against the foreign element who dwell in the European civilized quarters of the two towns. Apart from polities these natives believe that their present and their future states are getting worse; that too much percentage of the profit on the agriculture of Egypt goes into foreign banks. Their ridiculous Arabian language is out of date; they have no idea of finance and of commerce, and they are running amok against the present Government. With more overcrowding and more cotton cultivation things in Egypt can only become more serious, because there seems to be no help for it. The curse of our British rule is the social cancer of our British clubs and British settlements in Zamdlek in Cairo and Ramleh in Alexandria. Our trouble is the economic safety-