The British Government and the Khedive have decided to act
with a wise lenity in dealing with the rebellion. A general amnesty will, it is stated, be shortly published, from which none but a small number of leaders will be excluded. They will be tried publicly by a mixed tribunal appointed by the Khedive-, and consisting of five European and four Egyptian officers, and the sentences subsequently revised both by the Khedive and Sir E. Malet. It would be most injudicious to punish mere treason
with death, or to execute conscript mutineers ; but the higher offi- cers deserve death for mutiny alone, and when mutiny has been aggravated by murder, it should be inflicted. For example, we can ROO no reason, moral or political, why the officers who ordered the Khedive to be burned alive should be treated as anything but murderers. Our correspondent from Alexandria, who may be trusted, affirms, on the direct authority of the Khedive, that such orders were given ; and we at least cannot see that the crime is the less because the criminals had volun- tarily taken the military oath to their intended victim, or be- cause Tewfik happens to be a ruler. Sovereigns are human beings.
