THE MUDDLE IN EGYPT.
WE cannot take the same view as our contemporaries do of the latest incident in Egypt. It is quite true that this country can find half a million for the re- conquest of Dongola if it wishes it, or fifty millions either if the enterprise is worth such an expenditure, and quite true also that by advancing the needed monies we should slightly strengthen, instead of weakening, our hold upon the Nile ; but that is not the point. It seems to us that our position in Egypt is becoming absurd. We are occupying that country with the consent of Europe, in order that we may restore its prosperity, and so increase its strength that it may by possibility be hereafter able to stand alone. We have begun our task with a singular measure of success. We have so restored the finances that the credit of Egypt while we remain there is equal to that of a first-class Power, better, for example, than that of either Austria or Russia, and there is a considerable surplus revenue. We have made an army out of fellaheen and Nubians, so good that it can defeat the picked troops of the desert—who once " broke a British square "—and that it could, if let alone, destroy the power of that evil despotism, the Dervish sovereignty in Khartoum. We have intro- duced order into the collection of the taxes, so that, although the nominal demands of the Treasury have been reduced only by 10 per cent., the sums extorted from the people have been diminished by at least 30 per cent. We have made justice accessible and cheap throughout the Valley, we have put a stop to the life-wasting oppressions of the corvie, and we have produced such external order that the richest peasant can sleep without fear either of the dacoit or the Pasha. In completion of our work we have thought it well to liberate Egypt from the danger, always present and always terrible, of invasion from the South, and have at an expense of half a million given a most severe, it may be even a final, blow to the invader's power. And then we are told by an international Tribunal in Egypt that we who are the executants of a European mandate, who would be held responsible if anything went wrong in Egypt, who if the Khalifa had defeated Sir H. Kitchener must have instantly sacrificed our own money and our own children to drive back the invading savages, had no right to require the expenditure of that money, and that it must be repaid either out of our own taxes, or out of any savings not pledged to the Jews which we can persuade the Cairene Treasury to make. We do not care a straw about the technical questions raised in the discussion, about, for instance, the justice of the judgment—which, in fact, affirms that though Egypt is under six Powers, any one of them can veto an extraordinary expenditure of money as if Egypt were an estate under trustees— and maintain that the situation created by the de- cision is absolutely preposterous. It comes to this that while England, and England alone, would be responsible in the event of an invasion, she could not even in that event order the Egyptian Treasury to raise a loan to preserve all revenue and all civilised order from being swept away in a rush of sanguinary barbarism. Grant even the extremest demands of European Anglo- phobes, that we ought to depart from Egypt at a fixed date, or the constant assertion of our own Radicals, that our position in Egypt is fatal to all alliances, and still while we are there such a situation is utterly illogical and humiliating. How is it to the interest of France, or her bondholders, or anybody else, that the Dervishes should ravage up to Alexandria? It adds, of course, greatly to the vexation of the situation that the Tribunal which places us in such a position is suspected of not being an independent one, but of necessity from its constitution liable to impulses from foreign capitals ; but that is the merest detail in the business, the essence of which is that this country is loaded with the responsibility of action, acts successfully, and is then told that it had no right to act at all. Admit that the Court of Appeal is composed of high-minded lawyers, that its decision is within its powers, and that it is influenced solely by its legal mind, and the situation remains, as before, utterly unreasouable and humiliating. It is just as if the Postmaster-General had fought a suit against some interloper, and then under an ancient statute had been compelled personally to pay all costs.
We do not suppose that in the present temper of Europe and of this country anything can be done. France is not friendly, Germany is bitterly hostile, and Russia is waiting to see how events can be made to further the per- manent objects of her policy, in respect to which Egypt. Abyssinia, and perhaps more important States, are merely cards to be played, or only shuffled, according to the turns of the game. It is hopeless till the partition of Turkey commences to urge that in the general interest the British position in Egypt ought to be " regularised," and our supreme, even if temporary, authority recognised, while as we pleaded before the Court of Appeal we are bound to acknowledge its jurisdiction. We can only wait, so fax as we see, assist Egypt to repay the money " illegally " spent, and if we assail Khartoum, do it at our own ex- pense, Egypt assisting only as our ally, and keep the position avowedly as our own until our claims are brought into final settlement. But we should not be honest if we did not add that our inability to extricate ourselves from a wretched muddle of this kind is not to the credit either of our position or our diplomacy. There must surely be some way of coming to an agreement with the Powers concerned as to the limits of our political authority while the occupation continues, or at least as to our right to dispose of the surplus revenues which we and nobody else have earned for Egypt. We are overlooking events in Madagascar every day which if they occurred in Egypt would be declared by M. Hanotaux to be deliberate provocations to France ; and we have rights in the Mediterranean, and in the Black Sea too, which we never enforce. We detest a policy of worry, which exasperates all enmities without settling any grievances ; but it seems to us that in Egypt everybody worries us with total impunity. At all events, if we must grin and bear it, let us draw the only certain conclusion, that of all menu- tive instruments the Concert of Europe is the one upon which it is most difficult, not to say dangerous, to rely. Here in Egypt we see that Concert at work under the most favourable circumstances, with its action defined by written agreements, and with a single Power formally recognised as the executive authority, and yet it can- not be made to work even reasonably well. There are eight authorities, the Egyptian Government, the Inter- national Court of Appeal, the British Resident, and the five Continental Consulates, all supposed to be working harmoniously together, and all in reality pulling different ways. If that is the scene in Alexandria, what would it be in Constantinople ?
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