Two Ways with the Sudan
While the British authorities were putting the final touches to their draft agreement on the Sudan before its presentation to the Egyptian Government on Monday, an Egyptian representative, Major Saleh Salem, was paying an extraordinarily well-publicised visit to the Sudan, from which he returned with an agreement with the principal Sudanese parties. Since the text of the British proposals has not yet been published it is not possible to compare it -fully with Major Salem's agreement. But if the British Foreign Office, working, it is presumed, with responsibility as well as deliberation, cannot produce a more honest and helpful document than that which the Major found time to sign, despite the distraction of taking part in a Dinka war dance in his underwear in the presence of Press photographers, then there is little hope for a reasonable conclusion to the negotia- tions. The agreement between the Egyptian Government and the Sudanese political parties is full of .provisions which are better calculated to force. the British hand than to secure the best possible arrangement in the interest of the Sudanese, and in particular of the southern Sudanese. Its proposals for the withdrawal of all British and Egyptian forces before the election of a Constituent Assembly and the entrusting of internal security to the Sudanese forces, over which the Governor-General would have no authority, might conceiv- ably be acceptable, though the implication that both the Governor-General and the British forces are a menace to the independence of the Sudanese will not help to create the right atmosphere for agreement. The introduction of " neutral elements " (as distinct from British and Egyptian) into the Sudanese administrative staff, if suitable Sudanese cannot be appointed within three years, is a suggestion which appears to put political showmanship before the needs of practical government. And the restriction of the Governor-General's powers to secure the fair treatment of the Southern Sudanese (whose interests differ considerably from those of the North), looks like a device for giving the last word to the Egyptians. All this is unhelpful. It is to be hoped that Major Salem's war dance will not impress the responsible authorities in Cairo unduly whatever its effect may have been on the Sudanese tribesmen. '
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