Books and Records Wanted

OLD FOUR LEGS by Professor J. L. B. Smith. The Story of the Coelacanth. mite S. CourlauId, 56, Doughty Street. London WC1.

ESCAPE TO FREEDOM (Originally South To Freedom) by T. C. F. Prittie. Hardback or paperback. Also Wisden 1942. J. P. Jackson, 61 Spring Park Road, Shirley, Croydon. Surrey CRO 5EL Tel : 01-656 3189.

NATURAL HISTORY: student of subject seeks books on birds, mammals, 1 ieldlif e, etc. Pre 1900. Also books on town and Country life. Illustrated if possible pre 1900, Write Spectator Box 727 READERS DIGEST pre 1939 issues wanted. Write Spectator Box 728 OMAN—The Art Of War in the Middle Ages. Miss Cullingford, 23, Lower Road, West Malvern. Please suggest price. HORIZON March 1947: Good price offered, John Jollifte, Pot ticks House, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.

THE JERVIS BAY by George Pollock (Published by William Kimber). Write : Fegen, Ashleigh Cottage, Weston Green, Thames Ditton, Surrey, WALPOLE'S KATHERINE CHRISTIAN and The Joyful Delaneys : Greener, 17 Kenton Road, Thornton Heath, Surrey, 01-684 2961.

GREAT WAR, Kitchener Army, Somme: "Somme Harvest' by Wake, 'First Day on the Somme' by Middlebrook. Write : T. Creech, 4 Church Meadow, Long Ditton, Surrey. BENJAMIN BRITTEN OPERAS In good condition (not 'Peter Grimes'). Write Spectator Box 724.

SCOTLAND. Any volumes of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments, or books on Scottish antiquities and buildings. P. Clarke, 20, Morrison St. London SW11. ADMIRALS IN COLLISION by Hough. Write—Fegen, Ashleigh Cottage, Weston Green, Thames Ditton, Surrey.

burden of foreign debt, When President Sadat toured the Gulf and Saudi Arabia in February last year, he wanted 4,000 million dollars in assistance over a two-year period and was promised 825 million dollars. Most of this went on servicing the debt.

All Sadat has succeeded in doing is to get the worst of Nasser's dirigiste state and his own 'Open Door' policy. By the end of last year the IMF, the US and Gulf states were demanding that the Egyptian economy move faster towards supply and. demand principles. Most dangerously ,of all they wanted a cut in the 920 million dollars spent on food subsidies. For the average family in Cairo—a city of 8.5 million people, nearly one quarter of the Egyptian population— existing on an income of £46 a month these subsidies are the difference between misery and starvation.

Their bitterness was increased by another consequence of the opening to the West and foreign investment. The Egyptian middle class, which had kept its head down for twenty years, was celebrating its new-found freedom from 1975 on, with an orgy of conspicuous consumption: the monuments to the 'Open Door' are cars, nightclubs (many of them burned down in the riots), boutiques and restaurants.

More dangerous for the regime were the fingers pointing directly at the Cabinet. At the moment two former ministers, Ahmad Nouh and Abdullah Marzibane, are awaiting trial on corruption charges connected with the purchase of four Boeing 707s in 1972. The former chairman of the Bank of Alexandria and seven other leading officials are to be arraigned on other charges. The important figure of millionaire Othman Ahmad Othman, the Minister of Housing and Construction till last November, was accused of granting the more profitable housing contracts to his company, Arab Construction. The former head of the Religious Endowments Administration was brought to trial with eighteen others for selling land to developers at below the market price.

In addition to real corruption there were the rumours of corruption. Sadat's circle was increasingly under attack. Othman Ahmad Othman's son was recently married to Sadat's daughter. Another daughter of Sadat is married to Sayyed Marei, the Speaker of the People's Assembly and a wealthy landowner.

But it was against Sadat's wife Jihan, whom he married in 1951, that so many of the slogans of the rioters were directed. Rightly or wrongly J i ban is considered a sort of Tsarina Alexandra to Sadat's Tsar Nicholas. She is rumoured in Cairo to have played a part in the appointment of Abu Ahmad Ismail as Minister of Finance who was dismissed last November reputedly at the insistence of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. ‘Jihan, Jihan,' shouted the crowds, 'the people are hungry.'

Some credit should go to Sadat for relaxing the hold of the secret police and moving towards liberalisation of the press and poli

tical parties. But for the mass of Egyptians57 per cent of whom still depend on agriculture for a living—the promises of .Sadat brought nothing except worsening inflation. The vague rhetoric of development—their tone not unlike Harold Wilson's speeches about 'the white heat of technological revolution' in 1964—replaced Nasser's rhetoric of nationalism. So much was not mentioned. The government's attitude is exemplified by Cairo's war museum where military booty from Egypt's first crossing of the Canal in 1973 is displayed. Of the Israeli counterattack and the surrounding of the Third Army there is nothing.

Since 1975 spontaneous riots have been more common. In January of that year the Prime Minister was sacked after riots in which crowds had shouted: 'Hero of the Crossing, give us bread.' Sadat's answer to this was to speed up liberalisation, three quasi-parties within the Arab Socialist Union were allowed to operate and elections were held last year. It was either too much or not enough : there was just enough freedom for journalists and politicians to say publicly that they were not free.

The riots which erupted after the 1977 budget was announced were inevitable. Possibly the government would have welcomed a few stones to frighten the Saudis and Washington into being more amenable (there were initial suggestions that the riots were organised by the government which met the cynical response that in such a case they would certainly have failed). Perhaps the government simply overplayed its hand. When the situation has been as bad as it has been in Egypt for so long it is difficult to judge when the actual eruption will occur. With the IMF, Washington, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait baying for change it did not have much choice. Perhaps talk of a Communist menace will frighten the Saudis. At present the government is busily convincing itself of the power and influence of the previously unknown Egyptian Workers' Communist Party. It will have difficulty selling this theory even to its own supporters. Foreign investors, in any case chary of Egypt's prospects, are stealing quietly into the night.

While the Army is loyal, Sadat is safe, but with the limits of his power exposed. Twenty-five years ago, as a member of the Free Officer movement which removed Farouk, Sadat saw 700 buildings burned or looted in Cairo by crowds from the slums. Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo was attacked and twelve people killed in the Turf Club. A new Prime Minister, Aly Maher, was appointed who promptly reduced the price of bread, sugar and oil. He was, however, remarked Sadat in his book Revolt on the Nile, 'too much part of the regime to reform it.' 'While the capital city ofjEgypt was in the grip of anarchy,' wrote Sadat, 'the King was giving a banquet at Abdin, the Prime Minister was visiting his manicurist, and the Minister of the Interior was moving a piece of furniture he had just acquired. Such were Egypt's "leaders" at this time.'