TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE TRIAL OF ARABI PASHA.
IT would be difficult to imagine a better illustration of the enormous difficulties in the way of Mr. Gladstone, than this discussion about Arabi Pasha. When he surrendered, or rather was arrested in Cairo, the natural course for the British Government would have been to follow precedent, and detain him in Malta or St. Helena as a dangerous prisoner of war, until•such time as it became expedient to release him. This was the course pursued by ourselves in reference to Napoleon, by the French in disposing of Abd el Kader, by the Germans with Napoleon III., and by ourselves, again, in the matter of Cetewayo. There would, in that course, have been neither danger, nor difficulty, nor cruelty ; but another one was adopted. The British, having entered Egypt as allies of the Khedive, and being resolved to preserve rather than destroy Native authority, Arabi was handed over to the Egyptian Government. Had that Government been free to act according to its laws and its traditions, it would either have executed him by decree as a rebel, or, after a trial by a summary court-martial, as a mutineer. No military Court could have acquitted Arabi on that charge. The former course would have been condemned by Europe, the West, in spite of some terrible recent examples, such as the execution of thousands of Communists after surrender in Paris, being inclined to treat rebels with lenity ; but the latter would at the time have created little excitement. With the single exception of Spain, which is ruined by being the exception, the civilised world punishes military mutiny with death, the English, in particular, being on this point especially
inexorable. Thousands of Sepoys were executed after the suppression of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, though every sepoy was, like Arabi, doing battle more or less consciously against the intrusion of the foreigner. At this point, however, the British elector stepped in. He would not have Arabi executed for rebellion, in which he was right and consistent ; or tried by court-martial for mutiny, in which he was, we think, wrong, as well as inconsistent, mutiny on the part of a General against the civil power being as fatal to freedom as to constitutional government ; and, of course, he obtained his wish. Certain conditions' were made for the surrender, and the Egyptian Government, in obedience to them, placed a British officer, Sir Charles Wilson, on the Tribunal, and indicted .Arabi only for complicity in massacre, for ordering the firing of Alexandria,and for misuse of the white flag,—the latter an offence which endangers the bearers of flags of truce all over the world. Even yet, however, the British elector was not content. He insisted not only that Arabi should be tried, but that he should be tried publicly ; that he should have Counsel to defend him, and that the Counsel should be English. In fact, he insisted that all Egyptians should be publicly informed, in the most unmistakable of all conceivable ways, that while we handed all Egyptians, including Arabi, over to their own tribunals, we held those tribunals to be capable of committing, and, indeed, nearly certain to commit a judicial murder. The Counsel could not be understood by the Judges, could not cross- examine the witnesses, and could not read any document ; and the only use of them, therefore, was to overawe the Judges, and excite a strong feeling by their eloquence among the foreign populations.
At this last insult, the Native Ministry revolted. They declared, almost with oaths, that they would not break their own laws and show themselves servants in the face of their own people, because Englishmen suspected them of murderous intentions. They would hand Arabi back to the British, if we pleased, as a prisoner of war, or they would try him ; but they would not destroy their own authority by allowing that they were incapable of conducting a fair trial. Sir Charles Wilson's presence was ample guarantee against treachery, and for the rest, they would carry out their own laws. The Khedive, who cannot resign, finally overruled them; but we must say, we think, if Egyptians are to govern Egypt, the Ministry were right. There is nothing in the argument about our "surren- dering" Arabi, for we have also surrendered every living Egyptian to the Khedive's Government. But for us, and our direct action with the bayonet, the Egyptian Ministry could have tried nobody, punished nobody, acquitted nobody. A letter, for example, appeared in the Times of Tuesday declaring that the Egyptian Prefects in every district were exiling private enemies, as traitors to the Khedive, and it is perfectly possible that this letter, which bears much internal evidence of authenticity, is substantially true, and if we are responsible for Egyptian justice at all, we are responsible for all these unhappy victims. We are not responsible, as we refuse to govern Egypt, either for them, or for Arabi, who must be tried by that native authority and that native law which he endeav- oured to make the only authority and the only law in Egypt. There is something positively grotesque in a man who has led a rebellion in order to expel European influence from his country, declaring that without European Counsel he cannot in that country get a fair trial I How many Barristers from the Temple would Arabi have admitted to his Courts, if he had been successful ? The truth is, the English elector wants two incompatible things, viz.,—to govern Egypt on civilised ideas, and not to govern it—and must learn, what he never will willingly admit, that if he intends to grant self-govern- ment, which he may often be wise as well as right in doing, he must include in the grant the right to do wrong or doubtful things, if the self-governed country so will. He haa found that out in the Colonies about taxation, and in India. about marriage laws—polygamy being as legal in India as in Turkey—and he must find it out about modes of trial. Orientals will in their better moods insist on justice, and always regard it as an ideal object ; but they will not establish or adhere to the English methods of securing it,— will not, that is, declare that the moral conviction of impartial Judges is insufficient to justify sentence. If we will have scientific investigation in all cases, with professional defence and strict rules of evidence, we must set up our own Courts,—that is, in plain English, we must: govern, If, on the other hand, we think self-government all- important, and to be reached only through self-education- and we do not question that this is the most righteoue alternative, if only it is possible—we must learn to restrain our virtues as well as our faults, and abstain occasionally even from well-doing. If we do not, there will be no self-govern- ment and no self-education, and a popular hatred such aa no other kind of administration could inspire, such as even in Indian provinces has been found unen- durable. Already the present Egyptian Ministry, the only possible one, hardly know how to bear either our virtues or our faults, both of which, as it happened, were curiously exhibited in the telegrams of Wednesday. On that aay, the bulletins were full of the irritation caused by the British anxiety to secure full justice to a dangerous enemy, and the Daily News correspondent forwarded the following charac- teristic little anecdote :—" A British sentry, on seeing a Dancing Dervish perform in the course of a recent public rejoicing,' imagined the holy man to be an eccentric violator of the peace, and walked grimly and leisurely up to him, exclaiming, "Ullo, what are yer a 'umbugging in that way for?' and then rammed him with the butt-end of his musket.' Poor Tommy Atkins only meant to keep decent order within his beat, but what a picture it isl Bias Pasha is ordered to introduce a new mode of trial, because the British Respectable cannot believe that a Native tribunal will try a rebel fairly ; while the dancing dervish is punched in the stomach, because the British private cannot imagine that grotesque contortions can be part of anybody's worship of God. The amour-propre and the religious feeling of the country are both offended in the most palpable and even brutal manner in the purest innocence, out of mere desire to see everything done in the most British and, therefore, most "proper" manner. If those interferences were systematic, if, that is, we were about to suppress Egyptian ideas in favour of British ideas, the natives would either approve, or slowly yield to necessity ,• but as they are not, we run grave risk of a hatred which may end in an Egyptian Vespers. The very first task of the British Minis- try, and it will prove the most difficult, must be to educate its followers and its subjects and its agents in Egypt itself in the conviction that the Foreign Office has no right to compel a "self-governed State" to do justice to its own subject1s, either in the British way or any other. That will be a hard lesson to learn, because English electors will allege that as they furnish the Khedive with power, they are responsible for the use of it ; but as they have decided—probably wisely, and certainly from a deep feeling of genetosity—not to govern, they must learn it.
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