TOPICS OF THE DAY.
FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND EGYPT.
WE publish in our correspondence columns an able and temperate letter from Mr. Hodgson Pratt dealing with the subject of France, England, and Egypt, and the duties of this country in regard to Egypt. The subject is one which calls for careful and judicious con- sideration, and we are extremely glad that it should have been raised. Mr. Hodgson Pratt takes us to task for having used language which implies our right to remain in Egypt, and he then attempts to show that it is "im- possible, on any principle of international law, or any ground of moral right, to justify our position,"—i.e., the present position occupied by England. We want on the present occasion to deal with the points thus raised. The best plan will be to state first what we consider to be the present situation, and then to answer Mr. Hodgson Pratt's assertion that we are breaking our word. We remain in Egypt with but a very faint prospect of re- tiring, even in the distant future, because we find that what we may call the moral difficulties of evacuation are practically insurmountable. We mean by the moral difficulties, the difficulty of leaving Egypt with a reason- able assurance that the evacuation will not throw the country into a state of anarchy, which will mean not only ruin for the Europeans settled in the Nile Valley, but the extremity of misery and oppression for the natives. At present we know that evacuation must mean, probably within two years, anarchy of the worst kind,—an anarchy which either we or some other of the European Powers must return to prevent. Nothing can be more certain than that the natives of the official class are utterly unfit to take over and carry on the government of Egypt under conditions which would secure even a moderately good administration. There does not exist among the educated natives of Egypt a body of men out of whom an independent Ministry could be formed capable of administering the country without E uropean help and control. Twenty years ago it might have been possible to find a certain number of men among the so-called " Turks " who had the instinct of government, and who, though they would have ruled harshly and without any very intelligent sense of the needs of the country, would still have kept things from falling absolutely to pieces. There was then the material for a Government, though not of a good Government. Such material does not exist now. The last of the type which we are considering—the authoritative Turk—is Riaz Pasha, and Riaz is an old man. Our orderly rule has killed the old spirit of mastery, and the younger generation, while they have lost the virtues of the half-civilised Eastern, have not gained those of the European. The men in whose hands the Govern- ment must perforce be placed were we to leave Egypt to- morrow, are some of them like the late Khedive, amiable, well-meaning, and irresolute, others vain, restless, and weak, like his successor, but none of them capable of carrying on alone the work of government. An inde- pendent native Government must inevitably produce a squalid reproduction of the corrupt and worthless regime of Ismail Pasha. The result of such a reproduction must either be the return of Egypt to a permanent condition of barbarism, anarchy, and oppression—a condition which would be all the more horrible to the Egyptian people because they had known something so infinitely better— or the intervention of some European Power. But the world would find the first alternative an impossible one. Egypt could not be allowed to relapse. European inter- vention in some form or other would be the inevitable outcome of evacuation. If that intervention were un- dertaken by England alone, we should find ourselves in a very foolish position. We should have gone away for good, and come back next year. If the inter- vention were attempted by France alone, we should find a very large party here thrown into a state of intense indignation, and demanding whether we were to allow the French to reap the benefits of all our past expendi- ture in men and money. If France and England inter- vened together, we should be returning to the intolerable burden of the condominium. If the European Concert intervened, we should be trying a multiplex control fraught with even greater evils in the matter of jealousy and friction. The fact remains that under present circumstances we cannot evacuate Egypt without doing either a monstrous injury to the Egyptian peasantry, and so committing a gross breach of national duty, or else running the risk of international complications far greater than those which are caused by the present situation.
But though we recognise how immensely grave would be the dangers and difficulties caused by evacuation, we- do not wish to say that there are no considerations which should induce us to evacuate Egypt. The preservation of good faith is so essential a matter, that if it could be shown that we had made a definite agreement with France to leave Egypt within a particular period—a contract of a kind such as is held among nations to constitute an international obligation—we should counsel evacuation at all costs, and even though it might oblige us to return next year at the risk of war with France. But did we ever make any such contract or agreement with France, or in any way constitute an imperative inter- national obligation ? As far as we can see, we never did. Mr. Hodgson Pratt knows the whole subject thoroughly, and is very anxious to show that England did bind herself to France to evacuate Egypt, and he has produced the words on. which his case rests. But can any reasonable person saythat they amount to a binding obligation ? He tells us that— "Lord Hartington, in February, 1883, said that 'probably in six months the British forces would be withdrawn.' In the fol- lowing month Lord Dufferin said that • the permanent military occupation being contrary to the repeated declarations of her Majesty's Government, was not an idea to which he could give the slightest encouragement.' In November, orders were given for the evacuation of Cairo ; but they were not carried out, in consequence of the Soudan War. In 1884, Lord Granville replied to the French Government that her Majesty's Government are willing that the withdrawal of the troops shall take place at the beginning of the year 1888; and would propose to the Powers and to the Porte a scheme for the neutralisation of Egypt.' In August, 1885, the Conservative Government, on coming into power, sent Sir Henry Wolff to negotiate a convention, declaring that it had no idea 'of annexing Egypt or of establishing a pro- tectorate.' This convention was not at first accepted by France, because it stipulated for the return of British troops in case of disorder; but, later on, this objection was withdrawn, and Lord Lyons informed the French Government that our Government was 'anxious to be relieved of the burden which was entailed upon them by the occupation of Egypt.' In 1887, the Austrian Govern- ment pressed us to end our occupation ; and Sir Drummond Wolff (by authority, no doubt) spoke of the need of putting an end, as soon as possible, to a position so delicate and dangerous.'" What do these quotations show ? Clearly that our Government sincerely intended to evacuate Egypt, pub- lished that intention to the world in the strongest terms, and strove their very hardest to accomplish that evacua- tion. What was the result ? They entirely failed to accomplish their object in 1888 as in 1883, and since that time the difficulties have increased instead of decreased. Does not it occur to Mr. Hodgson Pratt that the reason fur this failure is to be found in the fact, not that Govern- ments formed by both political parties and headed by Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Rosebery, have been guilty of duplicity and bad faith, but that the moral difficulties of evacuation have been too great. We believe that if Mr. Hodgson Pratt were to be sent to Cairo to-morrow to occupy Lord Cromer's place, and, with a free hand, to accomplish evacuation in two years, he would find that he had undertaken an impossible task. That, however, is another question. Our immediate contention is that the declarations made as to evacuation, which we have just quoted, do not constitute a binding obligation to evacuate of the kind which must be carried out at all risks, and without any thought of ulterior con- sequences. They were merely voluntary declarations made in error, but also in good faith. No doubt they may have, to a certain extent, misled the French Governments which took note of them ; but though that is to be greatly regretted, it does not, since the declarations were not made with any intent to deceive, constitute a breach of honour. Our Government, in making these impossible de- clarations, were no doubt misled by a false analogy. They argued, We have often in India occupied and administered a native State for a term of years, and then handed it back to its native rulers. We will do the same in Egypt. Three or four years of good administration will put things in order, and then we can retire, leaving only an agent to give good advice when needed.' They forgot that this plan succeeds in India only because the native State is imbedded in the Empire, is in a feudatory situation, and is never really put out of tutelage. It is propped all round by the British administration. In the case of Egypt the native administration would have had really to stand alone if our troops and officials had been withdrawn. Hence, what is easy in India proves impossible in Egypt.
It appears to us, then, that if and when France comes to us with the case put by Mr. Hodgson Pratt, and con- fronts us with our declarations, we can without any loss of honour, or without infringing any principle of inter- national law, reply to her as follows :—' We fully admit those declarations, and we do not attempt to explain them away. They were made in perfect sincerity, and re- presented our strong desire to get out of Egypt. We have found, however, that circumstances have been too strong for us, and that instead of evacuation being the easy thing we thought it, it is, at present at any rate, a virtual impossibility. We have found, that is, as you found in Tunis, that it is much easier to occupy an Eastern country than to evacuate it. You told all Europe in 1881 that you had no intention of re- maining in Tunis, but circumstances proved too strong for you, and you have remained ever since. We do not blame you or doubt your complete sincerity, but we ask you to remember the fact. We have no more desire, however, definitely to annex Egypt than you have definitely to annex Tunis. We will do as you have done in Tunis, and leave the question still open. We cannot, however, run the risk of unconsciously deceiving you again, and therefore we will make no more declara- tions as to our intentions, for we realise, by our example and your own, their futility.' It seems to us that to give such an answer would be in no sense dishonourable.
Before we leave Mr. Hodgson Pratt's letter, there is a matter which we should much like to touch on. He tells us that, "as Chairman of an Association devoted to the promotion of friendly relations between nations, I have, for fifteen years, been in close and constant communication, verbal and written, with the members of similar societies in France." Now if he desires to be fair to his own country, as we are sure he does, and expects, as he also no doubt does, that the French Societies with whom he is in correspondence should act on the same principles as those on which his English Society acts, he ought to get those French Societies to take up the case of Tunis, and the French declarations as to evacuation. Unless and until Mr. Hodgson Pratt comes round to our way of thinking, he must hold that the French declarations in regard to the evacuation of Tunis, when coupled with its retention, constitute quite as grave, if not a graver, infringement of moral right and international law than our continued presence in Egypt, and he ought therefore to do his best to get the French Societies to move in the matter, and to press on their Government the evacuation of Tunis. It cannot be fair to deal only with the Egyptian question. In case Mr. Hodgson Pratt should not realise how much stronger the case for the evacua- tion of Tunis is than that for the evacuation of Egypt, we will venture to remind him of the facts. The first fact to remember—a fact to be found set forth in Mr. Spencer 'Walpole's excellent History—is that when the French took Algiers, they promised our Government that their occupation should only be temporary. Of course they found that it was impossible to keep this pro- mise; and that, as we have said above, you cannot in practice evacuate Eastern countries when once you have occupied them. They then applied to us to be free of their promise. We assented, but on the explicit understanding that France should never take Tunis. In 1881, France did occupy Tunis. Though we made no objection to the occupation, the French Government, and we believe with perfect sincerity, overwhelmed us with the most solemn declarations that they had no inten- tion of annexing Tunis. Here are some of them :— " On April 6th, 1881, Lord Lyons informed Lord Granville (then Foreign Secretary) that M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, repeated the assurances so often given that he considered that the annexation of Tunis to France would be a mistake and a misfortune.' On April 17th, also, Lord Granville wrote to Lord Lyons telling him that he had seen M. Challeinel-Lacour, the French Ambaskador, and that he had said, that the French Government had no intention of annexing Tunis.'" Sometimes the phrases vary. Now the Government of the Republic have no intention "to take possession of the Sovereignty of Tunis, nor to add any part of that country to French territory." Now it is declared that—.
"If it should be found necessary to occupy for a time certain points in the Regency with French troops, the occupation would be of an essentially provisional character, and would cease as soon as sufficient security had been obtained for the punctual execution by the Bey of the new arrangements which would be effected by the Treaty which he would be required to make."
Next, any thought of "permanent occupation" is denied. Still more formal is the Treaty made with the Bey and communicated to the Powers. It distinctly declares that "this occupation shall cease when the French and Tunisian military authorities shall have recognised by common consent that the Local Adminis- tration is capable of guaranteeing the maintenance of order." Again, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs in a circular dated June 20th, 1881, addressed by him to the diplomatic agents of the Republic, used the following language in regard to Tunis :— "The French Government have announced openly that they desire neither annexation nor conquest. If they had nourished this design, they would have realised it long ago, without the slightest difficulty, during the fifty years that we have been in possession of Algiers. But it does not require much wisdom to feel that it would be a very great act of imprudence to add another 2,000,000 Mahommedans to the 3,000,000 Algerians whom we have already sufficient difficulty in governing and keeping quiet. All we wish to do in Tunis is to help it, by our enlightened and sineere assistance, in conforming itself more and more to the advantages of civilisation."
We could quote plenty more of these declarations, but we must not weary our readers. We will only ask, "Can it honestly be said that our so-called promises in regard to the non-permanency of our occupation of Egypt are half as strong as those of France P" But if this is so, then Mr. Hodgson Pratt and the Societies in France with whom he works must at any rate act in France as well as in England. Here, indeed, is a way to bring about the evacuation of Egypt at all costs. If the French Govern- ment were to evacuate Tunis and were then to demand the evacuation of Egypt, that demand would be irresis- tible. We do not for ourselves, however, desire any such act on the part of France. We are perfectly willing to believe that she acted sincerely when she made the promises we have quoted, and that it is not through ill faith, but through the force of circumstances, that she is unable to keep her promises. We do not use the Tunis promises as a tu quogue. We merely remind France of the fact that it is easier to promise the evacuation of an Eastern State than to carry it out. Let her judge our conduct by her own.
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