Unrest in Egypt Egypt's acquisition of independence has not prevented
history from repeating itself in the relations between the Palace and the Prime Minister, with, however, this material difference, that there is opposed today to an experienced and capable politician like Nahas Pasha not an equally experienced monarch, but a boy of seventeen. The con- troversy seems to have arisen, as so often before, out of the King's choice of a personal political adviser, Ali Maher Pasha, who was not persona grata to the administration. With this has now been associated other issues, one of them the King's demand for the disbandment of the Blue Shirts, the organised but unarmed Wafdist body supporting the Prime Minister, the other the proposal, which the King would almost certainly reject, that a Prime Minister who could not on his appointment command a majority in the Chamber should be compelled to hold a General Election. Relations between the King and the Prime Minister, who is ill and has had to leave the Government in charge of the Finance Minister, Makram Pasha, and King Farouk have almost reached breaking-point, and the possibility of the appointment of Dr. Ahmed Maher, brother of the King's adviser, to the Premiership is being canvassed. Ahmed Maher might secure sufficient support in the Chamber to avert the necessity for a General Election. For obvious reasons political unsettlement in Egypt at this moment is profoundly unfortunate.
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