NEWS OF THE WEEK.
FROM 7,000 to 10,000 Indian troops and about 22,000 British troops of all arms,-2,400 cavalry, 13,400 infantry, 1,700 horse and field artillery, 3,700 of special corps, and also 3,600 reserves, to sail later,—are to be despatched to Egypt, and 10,000 men are to be added at once to our little Army at home. It is devoutly to be hoped that no Turkish troops will be sent, to complicate the situation. Ministers, however, still assert that the Sultan may send troops, if the conditions to be agreed upon are only satisfactory, a state of things which greatly alarms us, though we hope with some confidence that the Turkish intention is not serious. The Sultan has shown all through that he wishes to be on terms with the military mutineers, and the reasons which make the Sultan wish it are likely enough to operate still more dangerously on his troops, so that they may catch the fanatical Mahommodau spirit by which the dupes of these military mutineers are animated. To increase the confusion in Egypt by sending Turkish subjects for conversion there, would indeed, be disastrous ; and this course might easily turn a diffi- culty which a force of 30,000 British troops might easily subdue in three months, into a difficulty with which it would take a great army and a long campaign to deal, The Sultan is, perhaps, only finessing, to delay or prevent our prompt action, —in which he will not succeed. But if he sent troops in earnest, the difficulty might be very great indeed.
