Egypt
The rioting which we recorded last week has, unfor- tunately, spread to Cairo and Port Said, and King Fuad has refused the petition to re-open Parliament. The statement of our Prime Minister in the House of Commons last week has not been well received. He said that the High Commissioner had been instructed to make clear our neutrality in Egypt's internal troubles and that the Egyptian Government would be held responsible for the lives and property of foreigners. He added that Sir Percy Loraine had been told to say that Great Britain would not be made an instrument of an attack upon the Egyptian Constitution. The meaning is obvious, and it is as well that it should be understood, but Mr. MacDonald's public statement was clumsy and we cannot be surprised at the Egyptian Prime Minister writing a somewhat angry Note, pointing out that he feels it quite inconsistent with the declaration of neutrality. Ahmed Pasha Ziwer, the former Prime Minister, is in London for the Inter-Parlia- mentary Conference, and wrote in the Times of Monday a letter protesting against the suspension of parliamentary government and saying that he himself was wrong when he- did the same thing that Silky Pasha is doing. Egypt is
being closely watched by other nations, not least by Italy, and the British determination to put off responsibility for foreign interests does not please them.
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