MR COURTNEY ON EGYPT.
MR. COURTNEY, in his speech at Liskeard on Monday, shrank from his own conclusion. That is not usual with him, for, as a rule, his confidence in his own opinion is
only surpassed by the courage, not to say audacity, with which he states his conclusions. In this instance, however, he has shrunk. In a most careful and forcible speech, full both of logic and of epigram, he argues that the British Government, after setting the Khedive on his feet, ought to retire from Egypt altogether. Its agent ought to be a mere adviser, whose advice the Khedive may disregard. He is "neither to inter- fere, nor overrule," but to be a mere servant, whom the ruler of Egypt may dismiss at pleasure. Sir Auckland Colvin is not to be "director, but an adviser; not nominated from without by England or France, but nominated from within by the Khedive ; not irremovable, except by consent of England or France, but removable at the pleasure of the Khedive." The British are to leave Egypt, if not to stew in its own juice, at least to "simmer" in it, even if the simmering ends in anarchy. Mr. Courtney utterly repudiates the idea that anarchy is a reason for inter- vention. Let there be anarchy. Why not ? "I am able to tolerate a good deal of anarchy in different parts of the world with perfect equanimity ; and if anarchy be inevitable in Egypt, I do not see why we should be unable to tolerate it." Anarchy may be but the beginning of order, but if not, let us leave it alone. "I hope there are some few of us still left in England who believe in the old-fashioned doctrine of the Liberal Party, the doctrine of non-intervention ; and we, I hope, are ready to look upon anarchy abroad, and to let nations simmer, and boil, and stew, and yet not interfere, unless we see some most patent proof, such as can rarely be brought forward, that a short and swift intervention would remove the cause of the disease." That is intelligible, at all events as intelligible as "Perish, Savoy!" But why does Mr. Courtney stop there ? His logical course is to carry on his argument, and declare that in intervening in Egypt the Government committed a blunder, and ought to be condemned. If a blunder, it was a big one, one of the biggest on record, and Mr. Courtney ought to move a vote of condemnation explicit enough to prevent a repetition of the error. What is his excuse for not doing so ? Just this, that the insurrection of Arabi "tended to produce a military tyranny." A military . tyranny, besides being a great deal better than anarchy, is, in the East at all events, its invariable outcome. If Egypt fell into anarchy to-morrow, power would pass to the armed class ; and that class, if history teaches anything, would set up a military tyranny. The process is as inevitable as cause and effect, and as Mr. Courtney admits that we may intervene to put down military tyranny, his argument just comes to this :—We may not send an ex- pedition to suppress anarchy in Egypt, but may, when it has suppressed itself in the only possible way, send one to suppress its more endurable substitute ; but must then again retire, in order that anarchy may a second time recommence. In fact, we may compel the people of Egypt to let their affairs revolve in a vicious and destructive circle, but may not govern Egyptians. We are at liberty to prevent govern- ment, but not at liberty to prevent anarchy. That is the conclusion, the preposterous conclusion of Mr. Courtney's speech, but we shall not pin him to his own absurdity. He only invented it in order to avoid the real conclusion in his own mind, that we ought never to have gone to Egypt at all, but to have allowed the Egyptians, through Arabi—or through the Devil, if they preferred him—to settle their affairs in their own way. If he had stated that conclusion, however, he must not only have resigned, which we do not doubt he would have done readily enough, but have attacked the Government, which, for reasons more important in his eyes than the future of Egypt, he was reluctant to do. And therefore, he improvises a special excuse for a special expedition which knocks his own general argument to pieces. If Egypt sinks into anarchy, it will sink under a military tyranny. If it sinks under military tyranny, England may intervene. Consequently, England may always intervene, with the proviso that to be in the right, she must always be just a little too late!
We do not believe that there are many sensible Radicals
who will agree with Mr. Courtney, and certainly we shall not- We hold, on the contrary, that while military intervention in,. independent countries must usually be injudicious, its morality. depends always on the object of intervention, and its judicious- ness on circumstances varying with every separate case. There may be instances in which intervention is an imperative and supreme duty, instances in which it is at least advisable, and instances in which, for reasons of more importance than the fate of any single country, it is practically unavoidable. Sup-- pose France to fall into hopeless anarchy, one-half the popula- tion butchering the other half, all European progress stopped. by the calamity, and all that is good and sensible in France entreating an intervention seen to be entirely within our means,. and not to involve that national ruin which is, by the law of self-preservation, prima' fade reason against any movement whatever, is there to be no intervention ? Yet our obligation.- to France, as compared with our obligation towards our own , semi-dependent States, of which, ever since the arrangement of. 1841, Egypt has been one, is infinitesimal. We in that year forcibly prevented the independence of Egypt. We defended by the sword that " sovereignty" of the Ottoman caste, which is. the source of all Egyptian misery, as of all misery in Eastern- . Europe and Western Asia. We afterwards set up the Dual Con-- trol, which produced the insurrection, and yet we are said to have • no right of intervention. We maintain that our previous action,. our engagements to the Khedive, our pledges to the people - whom we had helped to plunder for the benefit of usurers, bound us to intervene, even if our own people had not beers,. massacred. But they were massacred. Does Mr. Courtney-, really mean to say that if the natives of India rise upon the.. Europeans and kill them out, we have no right to intervene ? Certainly not, yet where is there a better foundation for our . right in India than in Egypt ? It is positively a worse one, for . in India the majority would be only dealing harshly with an, usurping caste, whose right rests on the sword ; while its. Egypt, the people were dealing with foreign guests, whose- right, like their own right to come peaceably to England,. rests upon positive treaty obligations. We can see no reason5 whatever for deserting our own people in that fashion ; while we can see very clearly that if we had done it, British, . residence in Asia would have been impossible, and the world r. would have lost, among nearly half mankind, the only in- , fluence which, even if occasionally misused, tends permanently to reconcile liberty with order. Mr. Courtney might as well argue that we have no right to put down piracy in the Eastern seas, because Chinese and Malays either prefer that piracy should exist in their waters, or are too nearly anarchical in. their modes of government to put it down.
We have carefully avoided speaking of English interests- because Mr. Courtney would say, justly, that they are not to be- pleaded against higher considerations or interests broader still : but we suppose we may speak of duties, even to the Member for - Liskeard. One of those duties is, while we hold India, to give-. Indians the benefit of good, gentle, and inexpensive government, and the first condition for its performance is that the petty: isthmus which interrupts the water-route between Europe and- India be kept in decent order. We have as much right, in. the interest of the 250 millions of India, to insist that the- five millions of Egypt shall not attack us in transit, as we- have to put down piracy. That right at least is clear, and the- exercise of that right involves the corresponding obligations to see that order is not maintained in Egypt in too oppres- sive a way, that we do not sacrifice the Egyptians to the Indians. Whatare we doing more than that ? Mr. Courtney says- we have no more business with Egypt than with Mexico. He - might just as well say that he has no more business with his.. own doorstep than with the street, with the people of Ireland:. than with the people of Patagonia. Our business with the Egyptians arises from the fact that we are compelled by cir- cumstances stronger than any theory to ask something of- them. We ask nothing of Mexico, and if we intervene there,. can do it only from motives of abstract philanthropy, which may. mislead or be ill-founded. But we do ask much of Egypt,. and must keep on asking it, and in that asking is the, root of a moral obligation only less strong than that which,. binds a Government to its own people. We ask them to maintain order, to keep the Canal from attack, and to make some arrangement with their European creditors ; and are- bound to see that compliance, which is indispensable, shall:, involve as little Egyptian misery as we are able to ensure,. That obligation, unhappily, involves interference, as Mr._ Courtney would see in a moment, if he wanted free right a way through his neighbour's house, and burglars were in pos,
session. He would help the police to transport them, without an idea that he was interfering with the right of his neighbour to mismanage his own affairs.
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