TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE OCCUPATION OF EGYPT.

11 R. GLADSTONE'S speech in the House of Commons on Thursday night will be a very serious disappointment to all those who had, with us, sincerely believed that the Expedition to Egypt was deliberately intended to secure a better future for the people of Egypt, and not merely to give what the Primo Minister calls a " fair start" to a dubious experi- ment. Let us not be misunderstood. Nobody has more honestly desired to see the attempt at establishing a good Native Government in Egypt successful, than the Spectator. We are not eager for annexation. We are not desirous to see the burdens of the Empire increased. We are heartily desirous to see a progressive Oriental State of the genuine Oriental type established on secure foundations, if that be possible ; that is, a good English Resident in Egypt, and some arrange- ment which would secure for his reasonable representations the authority which our Resident can exert, for instance, at Hyderabad. And we believe that such a result is possible. We go completely with Mr. Gladstone when he says, " We must not go to work with the supposition that we can efface every Oriental mark, and bring Egypt by any device of ours into the atmosphere and temperature of the most Western States." That is just the danger to which the often very mis- chievous interference of the House of Commons in Egyptian affairs directly tends ; and we deprecate that tendency as much as Mr. Gladstone. But still, to come to the point of the issue, what did we go to Egypt to do, if we are to leave Egypt without any reasonable certainty that our intervention will have secured the country against the evils with which she was last year threatened ? To our mind the expedition to Egypt was either altogether wrong, or it was an expedition under- taken in the interests of the Egyptian people, and one which we are bound to turn to the permanent and solid benefit of the Egyptian people. When Mr. Gladstone says that we went to Egypt only to secure the Khedive a new start—a fresh chance of governing Egypt as a good Oriental ruler would govern her —he says, to our minds, either too much or too little, for we did not secure him even that as an independent Oriental prince ; and in order to secure him that as our ally, we must secure him a good deal more, namely, the promise of future support. No interposition of ours which was to cease completely, directly a new Government had been set on its legs, could pos- sibly give the ruler of Egypt the chance of governing as a good Oriental ruler would govern. The mere fact of our inter- vention has made that impossible. The Khedive is no longer an absolute independent prince. Almost everything we have done has been done in the view of somewhat limiting his powers, and of securing for the Egyptian people some few of the advan- tages of Western institutions. The Khedive, left to act through such institutions, can never be in any sense a great Oriental Prince, and he himself knows this as well as any one. He knows that if he is to administer semi-Western institu- tions, he must rely for his support on the authority of a Western Power ; and the sooner we face honestly the hopelessness of establishing institutions of the kind we contemplate in Egypt, without giving them some sort of tutelary help from the West, the sooner we shall face the true situation. It is perfectly true that so long as it is well known that such a support as this is really pledged to the Khedive, and that the Resident in Egypt when he does venture to speak authoritatively will have force at his back, there will be no need for a permanent occupation, however small the occupying force. It is perfectly true that there may be very few cases where interference will be needed, and that an able man like Sir E. Baring may be trusted to interfere effectually in the few cases in which there will be need for inter- ference, so long as the ruler of Egypt knows perfectly well what force stands behind Sir E. Baring, and that that force is pledged to support him. But, to speak the truth, it is hopeless nonsense to assume, as some people seem to assume, that the artificial system which we are trying to bring about in Egypt can go on without this confidence at bottom that England means it to go on, and if it should fail, means to restore it. With such a confidence, everything is possible. Without such a confidence, nothing that we have done is of the slightest use. At present, we believe that such a confidence exists, and so long as it exists all will be well. But the Prime Minister's language on Thursday evening as to "the fair start," and no more than the.fair start,—the impres-

sion he seemed to convey that we are under a far more serious obligation to evacuate Egypt than we are to see that a. stable and beneficent Government is established in Egypt —alarms us very seriously, and seems to us to threaten the moderate success we have already achieved. Let us admit freely that we are bound to evacuate Egypt as soon as we have established a Government there which is stable and which is beneficent. Still, are we, or are we not, bound afterwards to see that that stable and beneficent Govern- ment is not overset from within or from without ? That is they true test of the difference between the two parties to the dispute. We say that we are bound not only to set up such a Govern- ment, but to put it in working order, and to support it after we leave Egypt. Mr. John Morley and his friends appear to maintain the opposite. They want us to clear out of Egypt as soon as we can, and not to incur the slightest vestige of obligation to do again what we have once done, if it should: be undone. But what side does the Government take ? We- should have said up to Thursday that the whole drift of its

,declarations was on our side. But since Mr. Gladstone's speech of Thursday, we confess ourselves in doubt. We fear that it is even more capable of the interpretation which Mr.. John Morley would prefer, than of the interpretation which. we should prefer.

The Pall Mall Gazette printed on Wednesday a little table of the objects with which the Government went to Egypt, a table defective in itself, and even if it were not defective, enumerating objects which no one who regards the position of Egypt in the most superficial way can regard as fulfilled. Here is the table, with the Pall Mall's estimate of the drift of Lord Dufferin's letter to Mr. Glad- stone as to the degree in which the various objects are. attained :— "OBJECTS. How FAR ATTAINED..

To suppress the Military Rebellion

To reestablish the Khedive To protect the freedom of the Canal

To reorganise the Army To reorganise the Constabulary To reorganise the Police proper To reform the Judiciary To establish a Legislature To irrigate the Delta To subject Foreigners to Taxation Accomplished. Accomplished. Accomplished. Almost completed. Accomplished. A good deal still to do. Judges secured. Code not yet translated.

All arrangements made for- elections.

Plan ready, but it awaits Khedive's sanction.

Plan also ready, but awaits. sanction."

Now, in the first place, Lord Dufferin says that the reorganisa- tion of the constabulary is not accomplished, but only in course of accomplishment. That, however, is a small matter. But as to all the last four heads, the summary here given conveys no idea at all of the utter inchoateness of the institutions to be established. The appointment of what is hoped may prove a fair body of Judges, though they have not yet got to work,—the translation of the Code into Arabic not having been completed,—comes to nothing. It is simply ridiculous to speak of the judicial system as provided for, when the first step only has been taken. The proof of the efficiency of the Judiciary, as of other institutions, is in its effective work- ing; not in the preparation for a work which it is only hoped may prove successful. The administration of substantial justice in Egypt is the very key and the centre of the policy which we went to Egypt to establish. And yet our contem- porary wants us to clear out of Egypt before there is the trace of evidence, or of the possibility of evidence, that our policy has been effectual. It is just the same with the establishment of a Legislature. The arrangements for the elections are made, though the nominated members have not yet, it seems, been appointed. But no elections have been held. No Legislature has been convened. No attempt has been made to see whether the Legislature will prove a centre of anarchy and disturbance, or a centre of orderly and progressive reform. What would the Pall Mall have said to a critic who had regarded the Assembly of the Notables before Arabi's revolt as sufficient security for the orderly progress of Egypt ? Again, there is a plan for the irrigation of the Delta, there is a plan for taxing foreigners, but whether either plan will work, whether the foreigners, for instance, will submit patiently to be taxed, the Pall Mall no more knows than it knows what the weather of next year will be. Doubtless there are plans for im- provements of all kinds in Egypt, but it is not the abund- ance of the plans, but the steadiness of the work in carrying out some few of them, that will test the value of our recon-

emotive policy in Egypt. Above all, there is the great question of the condition of the peasantry, and their relations with the money-lenders who have possessed themselves of mortgages on so large a number of their properties. How will that great and most difficult conflict work out? Will it reduce Egypt to anarchy, or not I Doubtless it will, if the new institutions, which are at present mere paper institutions, fail of their in- tended effect. We can imagine nothing more insane, more incon- sistent with the whole policy of the Egyptian expedition, than it would be to evacuate Egypt, and give a sort of engage- ment never to return, with all these most essential reforms only made on paper, and not the least security for the effectual accomplishment of any one of them. Did we go to Egypt to make a show of restoring order and putting Egypt in the right track, or really to effect this? Did we go there to deliver her from military terror for a season, only in order to hand her over to the prospect of civil anarchy and a new military terror? If we did not, nothing could justify us in abandoning Egypt to her own resources with a lot of paper institutions to work out, which, without help and guidance, her statesmen are absolutely in- competent to work out. Doubtless Lord Hartington spoke not only without book, but without a trace of his usual judgment, when he was so rash as to contemplate that all this serious work could by any conceivable possibility be got through in a few months. But if,—only because Lord Hartington once made a hasty and ill-considered speech,— the Government were to evacuate Egypt, leaving all the most important part of their work undone, not only would Europe have the right to reproach this country with working pure mischief in going to Egypt at all, but the very party in England which was most reluctant to acquiesce in the Egyptian expedition would justly taunt the Government with having failed in the moral courage to achieve what they professed to think it their bounden duty to do.

We are fairly puzzled with this outcry from any party which once approved the Expedition, for a hasty casting-away of all the fruits which it was intended to bear. Mr. Gladstone said of Egypt, in his speech at the Mansion House on Wednesday,- " We have gone there with no selfish aims ; we have a great work to perform ; our desire is to accelerate its performance ; but we must beware lest, by too inconsiderate an attempt at acceleration, we should spoil it. When it is accomplished, we shall disappear from that country ; and the earlier its safe and adequate accomplishment can be attained, the more grateful will such a result be to the heart and mind of everyone of her Majesty's Ministers." That is statesmanlike language, in which we completely agree, though we have our own opinion as to the probability of accomplishing that work within any very brief period. But we are much more doubtful of the effect of such a passage as the following, in Mr. Glad- stone's speech of Thursday night :—" The right honourable gentleman (Sir S. Northcote) has treated us as if we intended to remain in Egypt until we had brought about institutions which would do credit to Utopia. We have no such views. But we thought that in the circumstances in which we found ourselves in Egypt, we should not be justified in simply con- fining ourselves to the restoration of order and supplying the material means for its maintenance. We might have stopped at that point. But we have regarded it as part of our duty to have a judiciary in a position which could bear fair promise of answering the primary purposes connected with the adminis-

tration of justice in a civilised society ; and going beyond that., we have looked to the provision which was to be made for future

legislation. But are we to say that we are to remain in Egypt until those institutions have reached such a condition that there may be no doubt whatever of their future stability f Such a view would be wholly visionary. How many countries are there in Europe at this moment—the most civilised and powerful— with regard to which few men will be bold enough to say what transmutations may not have occurred before many genera- tions have passed over their heads ? We have no such views. In popular language, we mean to give Egypt a fair start, and if we secure it order, supply a civil and military force adequate to the maintenance of order, and with a man on the throne in whose benevolence and justice we have con- fidence, with institutions for the administration of justice under enlightened supervision and in fairly competent hands,—if we have made a reasonable beginning to- wards legislative institutions, into which is incorporated some seed of freedom, our duty might be supposed to be complete." Now, that sentence seems to us to in- volve the future of Egypt in doubt. If Egypt is to under- stand that we are certainly going so soon as "a fair start has been secured, and that when we go our duty will be "oom- plete,"—in other words, that we shall not restore what we have established, if it should be over-set, the whole structure is a house of cards. It will be over-set, just because we have given the impression that we will never do our work over again. As yet,• everything is in germ. We might just as well fix a date for reaping the harvest when the seed is put in, or if one desires to be very hopeful, when the first green shoots are be- ginning to appear above the ground, as fix the date for finally abandoning Egypt, on the strength of such fulfilment of our aims there as we have already accomplished. But after all, it is not the evacuation of Egypt by the Army that is the most important point. The most important point is the diffu- sion of a confident belief that whether we have troops in Egypt or not, we do not intend to let what we have done be undone by either native intrigue or foreign interference. If there is any doubt on that point, our Egyptian expedition will be wasted, and our policy in Egypt will be a failure.