THE UPPER NILE.
WE wish we could feel sure that the Government are taking sufficient thought about the Upper Nile. We are not to be reckoned among those who imagine that in diplomacy lookers-on always see the best of the game, or who fancy that there is nothing more to be known in the region of foreign politics than what is known in Fleet Street. We realise fully that there are plenty of forces at work in the Chancelleries of Europe which cannot be advertised or screamed from the house-tops. Again, we are not among those who imagine that our foreign affairs are in incompetent hands. We are quite prepared to believe what all people who have worked under him assert,— namely, that Lord Kimberley is wise, prudent, and strong. We know, too, that among the permanent officials at the Foreign Office there are to be found as able and far-seeing men as any in the public service. Yet, in spite of that, we are gravely anxious as to what is being done in regard to the Upper Nile. We fear that Lord Kimberley and the Office have on this point fallen for the time into the mood which makes men say : "We can't as things stand ask the country to move ; it may be we ought to act, but there is unfortunately nothing apparent which will justify action, so all that we can do is to do nothing." In a word, we believe that those who are responsible for our foreign affairs have, as regards the subject with which we are dealing just now, fallen into the position of waiting for a lead from the country. It is a mood of mind which under its aliases of drifting or dawdling is very apt to capture our statesmen ; but it is one which may be fraught with most dangerous consequences to the future. It is the stuff that wars are made of.
Let us look at the plain facts of the situation, and see where they lead us. It has been established beyond doubt that if Egypt is to be safe, she must ultimately control the Nile from where it issues from Lake Victoria to the sea. If she, or the Power under whose influence she is, does not, and instead some foreign and hostile or indifferent civilised Power is seated on the Nile, Egypt is in great danger. In other words, Egypt is in danger if a foreign Power is in a position to cut off her water-supply. At present the Upper Nile is in the hands of savages, who have not the physical power to act the part of the hostile turncock. Once, however, instal the hostile turncock or the turncock who considers that he can make a better use of the red water than to let it run down its own channel, and the prosperity of Egypt is finished. Herodotus called Egypt the gift of the river. Any one who holds the Upper Nile can take back the gift. There is the matter in a nutshell. Egypt for its own sake, and we as the paramount Power, cannot let a Power like France take the Upper Nile. Putting the matter in its lowest terms, at any rate, to let France hold the Upper Nile, or any portion of it, means to expose ourselves to a notice to quit Egypt at once, and to a notice to quit which we must obey. Unless, then, we are going out of Egypt at once, and so can wash our bands of all responsibility, it must be England, not France, that is to control the Upper Nile. But perhaps it will be said, "Why bother about this just now ? There is no hurry. We and the Egyptians between us have got a perfectly good diplomatic claim to the Upper Nile, and we need not bother just yet. It is true that one part of the Upper Nile is temporarily in the possession of the Mahdi, and that the other piece, that between the Lakes and the Mahdi's country, has not yet been occupied by us. Still, the whole valley is one way or another set apart for England, and we can therefore wait a little and decide at leisure how it is to be ultimately appor- tioned." If this view were a sound one, we should have nothing further to say. Unfortunately, it is utterly Utopian. Our claims to the Upper Nile may be diplomatically perfect. Practically, we may any day find that we can only make them good by action which will bring us into actual conflict with France. The controlling factor of the situation is the fact that the French are pressing on from the West, and that their objective is the Upper Nile. Now, we know that we shall be told that this is all a delusion, and that we are paying too much attention to the wild dreams of a few French Chauvinists who want to create an Empire which shall stretch from West to East right across Africa. "The French Govern- ment and the French Foreign Office," it will be said, "do not want to go to the Upper Nile. They have got their hands much too full of work as it is. It is only a set of Colonial Expansion fanatics who dream of any such schemes. Do not let us be driven into premature action by a scare based upon Chauvinistic heroics." In our opinion this view is as unsound in reality as it appears sound in theory. It is, no doubt, quite true that the French Foreign Office and the French Government generally, do not want to seize the Upper Nile. They are, however, utterly weak on all Colonial matters, and tremble whenever the Colonial group in the Chamber -lifts up its voice. If, then, an adventurous French officer were to take it into his head to make a bold stroke, and were to cut across from the Congo Basin and establish himself on the Upper Nile, it is almost certain that the French Government would be forced to adopt his acts. The Colonial group would assert loudly that the Tricolour never goes back, and the Government would be forced to admit that they had never conceded that the -Upper Nile was within the English sphere of in- fluence. "If the Upper Nile is no man's land, why should we not have it ? " would then be the cry of the Colonial Chauvinists, and we may be certain that the Government would not be able to say them nay. But if this happened, think of the situation for England. We should be obliged either to abandon a policy which we have shown to be essential to the welfare of Egypt, the policy of controlling the whole Valley of the Nile, or we should be forced to fight France over what would in one sense be nothing but a few hundred miles of worthless sun-baked desert. Either horn of the dilemma would be intolerable. Now there is one way, and one way only, of preventing our being placed in this dilemma,—that is, to turn our paper occupation of the Upper Nile into an effective occupation. That is, "to stake out" the whole of the line of the -Upper Nile from where it leaves the Lakes to the borders of the Mahdi's country. If we did this, the French Government would be able to prevent themselves from being carried off their legs by a Chauvinist raid on the Upper Nile. Suppose a French officer got there and tried to stop, te French Government would be able to say, We cannot do anything but disclaim his action, because unfor- tunately the English are already in effective occupation of the Upper Nile.' Even a French Chauvinist would hesitate to say to his Government, "No matter, order them out ; and if they won't go, turn them out." France, it must always be remembered, no more wants war than we do, and the excuse of our prior occupation would be one which the Colonial group would be bound to accept. It is clear, then, that by occupying the Upper Nile from the Lakes to the Mahdi's country, we should be very greatly diminishing the risk of war with France,—should, indeed, be cutting away a ground of quarrel which may otherwise prove most troublesome. But even granted that it would be getting rid of many chances of unpleasantness with France to occupy the Upper Nile, it may be argued that the task is too great a one, and that we must not crush ourselves with pre- miums of insurance against risks. This notion of the terrible strain of occupying the Upper Nile Valley between the lowest place down-stream now occupied by us, and the Mahdi's country, is, however, a delusion. It would of course be a very big business to "take up" the whole Nile Valley with the incident of a new Soudan war thrown in. We do not, however, propose anything of this sort. We would act solely from the Lakes end, and merely extend the operation begun by Colonel Rhoddy Owen. By allowing an officer like Captain Lugard to spend ..t50,000 a year for the next year or so, we might, we believe, easily obtain an effective occupation of that part of the Upper Nile which is now in danger. In other words, £150,000 spread over three years would secure us from the possibility of a collision with France of the kind that might end in war.
We have spoken freely upon what we regard as the culpable neglect of our Government in not taking action to ward off the risk of war with France. We have, in fact, accused them of leaving lying about a possession which they would have to fight for if any one else picked it up and said, "Finding's keeping,"—a course of action which we all regard in private life as the height of folly. In fair- ness, however, we must add a word which should always be added in all journalistic attacks on the Foreign policy of a Government. There may be some hidden fact which justifies Lord Kimberley in doing nothing. It is quite pos- sible that there exists a secret understanding with France as to the Upper Nile which would make any rapid action un- necessary. It may also be part of the agreement that we are not for the present to arouse Chauvinist feeling by prompt action. But though such an agreement is a possibility, we are inclined to think that it does not exist in the present case. We fear that it is much more likely that our Government is trusting to some general and un- binding expressions on the part of the French authorities as to their unwillingness to burden themselves with a further advance on the Upper Nile. If the Foreign Office is really trusting to such vague general assurances, they are making a very great blunder. As we have hinted above, they are trusting to the French Govern- ment not being carried off its legs, and yet allowing the chance of something taking place which is certain to carry the French Government off its legs,—i.e., the "rushing" of a slice of the Upper Nile by an ambitious French officer. There is still just time to eliminate the risk of dangerous complications with France over a piece of African desert, and if we are wise we shall eliminate that risk, even if it costs us £100,000 a year. No doubt, by itself, the Upper Nile is not worth £1,000 a year,—as a means of escaping difficulties with France, from which war would probably be the only outlet, it is worth a thousand times that sum. We advocate the effective occupation of the whole of the stream of the Upper Nile, and of at least twenty miles on each side, not because we want more territory—we do not want an inch more—but because not to occupy it is to leave open an opportunity for war with France which may have results which no one can contemplate without the gravest regret.
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