Under the beading "An Experiment that Failed," the Times special
correspondent in Egypt gives a survey of the period of unrest which culminated in the murder of Boutros Pasha. Lord Cromer, as he reminds us, had already initiated the experiment of giving the Egyptians a larger share in the Administration before he left Cairo, but it was carried on under the Liberal Administration at home, and with a new British Representative on the spot, with less caution than Lord Cromer would have displayed, and without the public guarantee afforded by his great personality that the situation would never be allowed to get out of hand. Sir Eldon Gorst, according to the correspondent, deliberately effaced himself, and British control appeared to be entirely withdrawn. To make matters worse, public confidence was shaken by two bad cotton seasons, and by the substitution of inefficient native inspectors for British officials in the Cotton-Growing and Sanitary Departments. Open contempt for British authority became the fashion among Egyptian officials both in Cairo and the provinces, schools and Colleges became hotbeds of sedition, and the Moderates were overborne in the Legislative Council and General Assembly.
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