Agreement with Egypt The Anglo-Egyptian negotiations have proceeded un- impeded
to a most satisfactory conclusion. Agreement having been reached first on the military clauses of the proposed treaty and then on the Sudan, there remained the complicated question of the capitulations. It is a manifest anomaly that Egypt should be fettered in her financial and judicial procedure where foreigners are concerned by restrictions which countries like Turkey and Persia shook off years ago; but the capitulations involve agreements in which no fewer than thirteen foreign Powers are concerned, and they could not be abolished by any accord between Egypt and Great Britain. Nor could this country go so far as to approve the denunciation of the capitulations by unilateral action on Egypt's part. The course taken, and the only course to take, was to promise Egypt our full moral and diplomatic support at a conference to be called to consider the abolition of the capitulations. The fact that one or two States refused their assent when the conference met would not frustrate Egypt's desires, any more than the absence of Italy from the. Montreux Conference prevented Turkey from getting what she wanted in the matter of the Dardanelles. The Anglo- Egyptian agreement is a welcome ray of light on the eastern horizon.
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