[To TEL EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
do not care to express an opinion on the advisability or inadvisability of erecting a statue to Sir Ralph Abercromby at Aboukir, but I am unwilling to allow to pass without pro- test Mr. Arnold Ward's reference to "the studiously correct attitude of the French colony in Egypt." The attitude of the French Government towards the British occupation of Egypt has varied from time to time according to the political situa- don of the moment, the political tendencies of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the character and disposition of the French Consul-General in Cairo. But the attitude of the French colony in Egypt has never been anything but bitterly hostile and aggressively obstructive to each projeeted British reform. In saying this I am only repeating what has been admitted to me by French Consuls-General in Cairo, French Ambassadors in London, and French Ministers for Foreign Affairs. M. Waddington once said to me : "Had the attitude of our colony in Cairo been as correct as the attitude of your colony in Tunis there would have been no Egyptian question, and I even doubt whether you would still have been
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