4 AUGUST 1883, Page 2

The Administration of Egypt appears to be quite incom- petent

to deal with the cholera, and, indeed, with almost all other questions, in any sense satisfactory to European criticism. In truth, the position of Egypt, exposed as it is to European criticism, and administered as it is by Native statesmen on prin- ciples wholly inconsistent with European assumptions, proves. to be quite untenable. The cholera is now diminishing in violence almost everywhere, though more and more of the English troops are attacked ; indeed, we suppose that by this. time in some hundred cases the disease has proved mortal to• our soldiers. Otherwise, as we said, the epidemic is on the decline, though 275 deaths occurred on Wednesday at Cairo- Nevertheless, the attempts of the Native Government to deal with the epidemic on scientific principles have been utterly futile, and they have ended in Lord Granville sending out English doctors to direct the sanitary measures. That is, we fear, how all such efforts must end. If Oriental Governments attempt to apply principles which they do not understand, to please a distant Government on which they are dependent, they will always fail; and the result will be that the foreign Government must inter- fere more and more.