THE MISSION OF GENERAL GORDON.
THE British Government have admitted the limited re-
sponsibility for the Soudan, or rather for the section of it under the direct authority of the Khedive, of which we spoke last week. They have not held themselves justified in moving armies, expending British lives, and perhaps bringing on international complications, in order to repair the blunders of the Egyptian Pashas, or to "restore order in Equatorial Africa." On the contrary, they insist as before on the relin- quishment of the vast and vague empire to the south which Khedive Ismail built up, which has heavily burdened Egypt, and which has, on the whole, in the opinion of the most ex- perienced observers, including the only Englishman who ever held command there, greatly added to the sum of human suffering. The ports on the Red Sea littoral will be retained, and the final decision as to the river valley up to Khartoum is suspended ; but all south of that point is to be surrendered, whether to the Mahdi, or, as the Government still hopes, to its own people. As, however, the change may have far-reaching consequences, and involve great sacrifices of life, the Governmen have selected a special Agent to control the evacuation, and see that it produces as little misery and bloodshed as so vast a movement can be made to involve.
This agent is the very best they could have found. The ex- ceptional career of General Gordon, his unusual daring, and his Old Puritan faith, have combined to invest him in English eyes with a grandeur which is not altogether reasonable. A Gordon mythus is rapidly growing up. He put down the Taeping rebellion, but he did not form a per- manent Chinese Army ; and though he introduced order into the Soudan, he did not break the power of the slave-dealers, for they are ruling there now. Still, he is the one Englishman thoroughly acquainted with that region, he is a soldier probably of genius, and certainly of great insight and originality ; he is absolutely disinterested and fearless, and he has three further qualifications seldom united in a man of his type. He is one of those Europeans, never yet quite accounted for, who exer- cise a personal ascendancy over Asiatics and Africans which seems to be irresistible and self-derived, and which makes of the most treacherous and cowardly of mankind brave and loyal followers ; he can make soldiers as well as lead them, and that out of materials as bad as Clive's jail-birds or Lally's galley- slaves ; and he has no hesitation whatever in inflicting the only penalty which Orientals fear,death. He tried to execute Li Hung Chang with his own hand for breaking his word, and both in China and the Soudan, oppressors, peculators, and, above all, mutineers, found themselves hanged with a certainty and celerity which in Asia, at all events, is held to prove that the ruler is a true servant of God, who does not "bear the sword of the Lord in vain." General Gordon is quite capable of ordering the Sheikh of the Bishareen, the most powerful chief near Suakim, to convey him to Khartoum; and the Sheikh, know- ing him, is quite capable of believing that if he did not do it, unknown misfortunes would fall upon him and upon his tribe. The General will, therefore, in all human probability arrive at Khartoum, whether by Suakim or any other route ; and once there, if the city has not been evacuated, he will speedily form an army. He has Colonel Stewart with him, who once governed Khartoum and is known to every in- habitant of it, to vouch for his commission. The officers will yield to the Queen's representative, or be dismissed ; the Blacks, who know him and are brave, will obey his orders ; the Egyptians, who are not brave, will be terrified into discipline ; and there will in a month be an army capable of holding Khartoum against the tribes, or marching to Suakim through any calculable amount of opposition. He has performed that feat already three times, once with Chinese conscripts, once with Egyptian conscripts, and once with liberated slaves, and intended to perform it once again upon the Congo. It is quite possible, indeed, that the great slave-traders, aware of General Gordon's unrelenting hostility, afraid of his power of attracting their slaves, and steadily beaten for five years, may be afraid to attack him, and either leave him in Khartoum unmolested, o tuffer him to march back to the coast in peace. At all e ants, if he arrives in time, as seems now possible, he will restore discipline, heart, and the capacity of fighting to the garrison; and these things, and not a mere bloodless retreat, are the things it is for the honour of England to secure. If the combined garrisons hold Khartoum, or get away with the loss of a third of their number, they will be luckier than their irresolution and want of fidelity deserve. General Gordon will, in fact, if successful, effect all an army could effect, short of a reconquest we do not desire, and he has shown repeatedly under similar circumstances the faculty of being successful. What he does about languages we do not know, but we do not suppose he ever exchanged a word with his Chinese conscripts or heroic slaves from Darfur ; and Clive, who had just his magnetic power over dark men, never in his life spoke to a Sepoy in his own tongue.
The immediate danger over, the Government will have finally to decide on the fate of the Soudan, and what is doubt- ful in that question has been narrowed by events. As to the surrender of the whole Equatorial region, General Gordon is entirely in accord with the Ministry at home. The whole, up to Khartoum at least, must, they all think, be given back to its own people. If the natives of Bahr-el-Ghazal, Darfur, Kordofan, Fashoda, and Sennaar choose to govern themselves, that will be an acceptable solution ; and if they choose to accept the Malidi, that will be an endurable solution, for a Sovereign who really reigns can be coerced into respecting boundaries. General Gordon thinks that if the Sultan of Darfur and the great Sheikhs now held in durance in Cairo are released, they will re-establish their own authority ; but he probably under-rates the strength of Mahommedan feeling, which, shown as it is by the bad as well as the good, often puzzles observers. In any case, how- ever, he is in favour of withdrawal, believing and saying openly that the worst indigenous government in the Soudan is better than the best that Egyptian Pashas will organise. There remains, therefore, only the question of Khartoum, which belongs to no one ; but that is terribly serious. The popular plan is to hold it as a kind of outpost into Africa, and communicate with it, as a station rather than a seat of government, from Suakim, which is always safe under the British guns ; but to carry out this policy, we must furnish the garrison, must hold Suakim ourselves, and must pacify the broad belt of country between that port and Khartoum. We must, in fact, hold a second and much more extensive dependency like Aden on the Red Sea, for no particular purpose, and with no prospect of obtaining adequate revenue. Moreover, we should be compelled, in sheer decency as a civilised Power, to clear the Nile route and maintain order down the river as far as the First Cataract, a most expensive and harassing bit of duty. There is no native power in Khartoum, and Egypt, besides governing it infamously, has not the strength, as we see, to protect it from the Mahdi, or any other assailant from the south. If Khaitoum is kept at all, we must keep it. The British would be, in fact, without Egypt, responsible for a very large and pauperised dependency, to which they had im- perfect access, and in which, without perpetual petty wars, they could do nothing,—could not, for instance, thoroughly suppress the slave-trade. If, therefore, the country proposes to give up Egypt, we still believe that Khartoum ought to be evacuated ; or rather, as there is no other authority possible, transferred directly to the Mahdi. If, however, the country is resolved to remain in Egypt, the whole situation is changed, and it may be advisable to retain Khartoum. It is far beyond the real Egypt, but it is on the confluence of the two Niles, and, therefore, a natural centre of trade ; it can be made by British engineers accessible by the river, and it is the out- post from which alone we can begin our inevitable task, if we hold Egypt, of finally extirpating the slave-trade. The weary Titan is heavily burdened already, but if he holds Egypt, he must take up that duty to humanity which, while Egypt was independent, we forced on her almost at the point of the sword. Khartoum would then be the natural entreplt, city of refuge, and centre for Central-Eastern Africa, and if it were given up, would be reconquered within seven years. The whole question turns, therefore, like every other connected with Egypt, upon the ultimate policy of her Majesty's Government. If we are to go away in a few months or years, it is almost mad- ness to retain a wretched city, inaccessible by direct steaming, 1,100 miles from the Mediterranean and 2$0 from the Red Sea, which, when the Mahdi is defeated, we can only hand back to the Khedive, who can neither govern nor protect it. If, on the contrary, we are to remain in Egypt, either as Pro- tectors or rulers, then it may be inexpedient to surrender a city from which we can watch and affect all that passes in that division of Africa, from which we can prohibit the slave-trade, and which we can, as permanent rulers of the Lower Nile Valley, turn into a grand entrepik of
commerce. The decision rests with her Majesty's Government, but events are marching rapidly, and they all march one way. We were not to interfere in the domestic administration of Egypt, and we have just appointed a Ministry expressly to obey our behests ; and we were not to interfere in Khartoum, where a fortnight hence her Majesty's special Agent will be the sole responsible authority. It looks very much as if Providence intended once more to use Englishmen in the work which they do best,—the maintenance of peace, order, and justice among dark races too weak of themselves to be anything but a prey through long ages to the spoiler. If England only knew, as General Gordon knows, what goes on in " Egypt " from Alexandria to Khartoum, the Government would have but little option left as to its course.
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