Egyptian affairs seem to have reached a crisis at last.
The Khedive has refused to sanction the sentences passed by the Courts-martial upon the Circassian and Tutkish officers who threatened Arabi Pasha, and has commuted them to simple exile on half-pay. The Ministry—that is, Mahmoud and Arabi Pashas—as the representatives of the Army, after furiously threatening the Khedive, have, in defiance of the " Constitu- tion," convoked the Notables, avowedly to supersede the family of Mahommed Ali. As this is naked revolution, and as the Premier is believed to have threatened the Europeans, the. Governments of France and England have resolved to inter- vene, and on Thursday night Sir C. Dilke announced that negotiations were proceeding. The character of the intervention is still undisclosed, but M. de Freycinet has stated that the objections of France to a despatch of Turkish troops are insu- perable, and it must, therefore, take some other form. We pre- sume that a demand for the dismissal of the soldiers' leaders will be formally made, that if the Khedive cannot obey it ho will be replaced by a stronger man, and that in the last resort French troops will land at Alexandria and Indian troops at Suez. The danger is that the soldiers in desperation may take some violent or even bloody step, but the Egyptians must be well aware that they are powerless.
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