Lord Lloyd's Egypt
Egypt Since Cromer. Vol. II. By Lord Lloyd. (Macmillan. 21s.)
This extremely readable book, fluently and pleasantly written, with generosity free of grudge, will, of course, take its place beside Cromer's classic, which it betters stylistically, having none of those clotted phrases which in some quarters are considered a just tribute to " the dignity of history." Being the story of a double conflict, one of which, moreover, has to do with Orientals, it is full of dramatic moments, some of which are presented with a pleasant, never lumpish irony. It is, one need hardly say, a sad story, which would be a tragedy, but that a tragedy, as everyone knows, besides having a beginning and a middle must have an end, whereas this story has no end, and it does not appear as though it could even fizzle out in decent oblivion.
Lord Lloyd ended his first volume with Lord Allenby's release of the four deportees from Malta on April 7th, 1919, at which point he takes up the tale, to conclude it with the end of his own period of office in 1929: we wish he could have taken it further. Most people will have forgotten what hap- pened from ten to fifteen years ago, but Lord Lloyd's admir- ably compressed account will bring it all back vividly. First there was the Milner Commission of 1920, which in spite of tremendous difficulties, produced a report which changed the whole of our policy, and orientated it towards the indepen- dence of Egypt. In Egypt itself a period of chaos ensued, during which the murder campaign began, and in the midst of which Lord Allenby practically forced the home government to make the famous Declaration of 1922, constituting Egypt an independent country, bating the four reserved points ; communications, defence, foreign interests and minorities, the Sudan. Shortly afterwards a constitution was constructed, and Saad Pasha Zaghlul was returned to " power" ; but as he was unable to control his extremists, the murder campaign con- tinued, culminating in, though not ending with, the murder of Sir Lee Stack. This had the effect of driving Zaghlul froM office, and the Egyptians from the Sudan. Then followed the various abortive attempts at treaties, the fluctuations and vagaries of our own policy, and the internecine struggles among the Egyptians themselves, as often as not resulting in a distinct score for the King. And now we are where we were in 1920, except that we are all growing poorer together. Lord Lloyd arrived in Egypt in 1925, determined loyally to carry out the policy laid down by the Declaration of 1922. He believed that if it was shown that England meant to adhere firmly to the policy there laid down, order could be produced out of the chaos. If Egyptian independence was to be real, the reservations must be equally real : in the meantime it was no use pretending that the Army of Occupation was not there, and that we had no responsibilities. It is possible that given a free hand Lord Lloyd might have achieved his object, though he would be the first to confess that in that incalculable country you could never be certain what the result of anything could be. It is possible that the Army Crisis of 1927 might have borne better fruit than it did had not the Foreign Office cut across the middle of it : that will be a matter of opinion. It would certainly appear but for the unlucky forwardness of the permanent officials—though not of the Foreign Secretary—Egypt might well have gone on to a happier era with Sarwat Pasha as Prime Minister : to force a treaty on him—behind the High Commissioner's back !— was to invite the unfortunate man to his doom-. His fall gave Zaghlul's successor, .Nahas, a chance to gamble on the advent of a Labour government in this country, which, when it came proceeded to make exactly the same mistake as its predecessors in office, with exactly the same futile result. Before this Lord Lloyd had resigned his post in circumstances which make curious reading, and the temporary alliance between King Fuad and Mahomed Pasha Mahmoud came to an end.
The contention throughout this volume is that this country is making a profound mistake in substituting political ideals for administrative ones. Lord Lloyd is quite free of cant and humbug on this point : it is impossible to give ideals to other people, and seeing what is happening to Western political ideals at the moment, it is somewhat impertinent to offer them. What we can give other peoples is' sound and honest administration. The difficulty, however, which Lord Lloyd does not face—his remarks indeed about commerce show that he is not aware of it—is that though good administration may begin by benefiting the vast masses of the people at the expense of a tyrannous autocracy, what ultimately happens is that the peoples are exploited by foreign trade. Outside this his arguments are perfectly logical and have to be answered if a different point of view is to be maintained. No one will deny the enormous material gains of Egypt under our administration ; the history of the Sudan is the history (so far) of real progress. But every good plant runs to seed, and has to be replaced, though whether " self-determination " is the right plant to succeed it with is another question. This book then raises problems which are of the first importance to our
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