A CHANCELLOR FOR EGYPT.
IT is such a pity—we select that expression advisedly —that our position in Egypt is so embarrassed, ill- defined, and liable to misconstruction. The position may be unavoidable ; it is defensible ; and it will one day be improved ; but still, as the years draw on, so that a generation will shortly have elapsed since we began the occupation, it is such a pity. We have done a great deal, as it is, for the Valley of the Nile, have restored finance, have lightened, if not taxation, at least the pressure of taxes, have made the cities fairly safe, have intro- duced rudimentary justice into the provinces, and have begun or finished some important works for the en- riching of the people. It is all nothing, however, to what we could do if Europe would consent to leave us a little more unhampered, or if we could change our present " influence " into a more direct "authority." But for the jealousy of France, we could so materially reduce taxation, that the heavy fall in the prices of all produce would be unfelt by the peasantry; but for the difficulty we have in giving guarantees, our engineers could increase the wealth of Egypt one-third; and but for the dual Govern- ment, we could make Egypt internally as safe for its people as any London drawing-room. The jealousy of France is incurable, except by compensations which we are not yet at liberty to offer—though we cannot but believe that an adroit diplomatist might induce the French Foreign Office to consent to some reductions of taxation—and the great plans of our engineers must be prosecuted slowly ; but the worst evils of the dual Government might, we think, be avoided. There is a perpetual jar in the machine. The young Khedive is not the kind of strong governing man whom an Asiatic House sometimes throws up, but being in theory absolute, he naturally wants to use his authority in an absolute way, and as that cannot be allowed, there are perpetual collisions. The Khedive, by injudicious words, annoys the Army, or paralyses the Ministry, or excites the mob of Alexandria or Cairo, or he affronts some European agent, or he summons Bedouins ; and there is a sudden clattering of the machine ; and Lord Cromer, who is in fact the British Resident, is compelled to take off his glove and do something strong. It is necessary, too, that that some- thing should be visible. Once the Khedive had to apologise to his own " Sirdar." Another time he had to appoint a Premier he hated, and degrade a candidate he loved. And now he has had to place the occupying force, which he wants to be rid of, in a highly privileged position. The mob of Alexandria have been threatening British soldiers and sailors, as they thought, with the Khedive's consent ; and as this could not be borne, the Khedive has been compelled to create a special tribunal with power of life and death to judge offences wilfully committed against the occupying Army. There is no objection to that measure in itself. We have had to recur occasionally to Special Commissions in India and Ireland and all the dependent Colonies ; the President of the tribunal is a trained Judge, Sir John Scott, with a liking for the natives, and there is no chance whatever of injustice being done, but still the Khedive is humiliated, and our anomalous position in Egypt is rather nakedly revealed. We are trying as hard as we can to introduce good Courts into Egypt, to improve procedure, and to elevate the status of the Judges, yet we are compelled to place our occupying forces under special law, special pro- cedure, and special Judges. There was nothing else to be done, and we have no objection to raise ; but it is a pity. One would so much rather get along without suspending the ordi- nary laws, even as regards a class, or having to take special precautions against collisions between the people and the garrison. And it is also a pity that measures like these should all appear to be contrary to the dignity of the Khedive. He is not a wise ruler, perhaps not even an endurable one, but still it is in his name that we govern ; and to have to be perpetually hinting that he must be de- posed, or even his House superseded, is not pleasant—mit a process which, however necessary—and we are not denyir g its necessity—tends to diminish the English civilians' draw- back in governing, their disagreeableness to the upper classes of the governed. They get along with the proletariat well enough, for the latter like justice and light taxation ; but the gentry, who feel throttled by our inflexibility and " priggish" desire for European justice, cannot reconcile themselves to our authority. They fret, and their titular ruler frets, and those whom they influence fret, till, when- ever there is a jar, rumours are circulated of approaching revolt, and alarmists talk of massacre, and half Europe looks on, thinking that though the English govern success- fully, they govern without amiability or consideration for feelings, which the Continent holds to be exceedingly fin- portaht. The Khedive is' we do not doubt, a froward person ; but we do not know a European Prince who, in his posi- tion, would not be boiling-over, or who if a weak man would not be tempted to give little pin-pricks to his aggressive tutor whenever he saw that that was safe.
Could not the situation be ameliorated by a little more frankness ? We mean avowedly to govern in the last resort until the Occupation ends. We also mean to carry out our administrative improvements. And we also mean, if we can, to leave the descendants of Mehemet Ali at the head of the State. Would it not be simpler and more honest, then, once for all to tell the Khedive that he must, during the occupation, be content to be a constitutional Sovereign ; and to appoint in succession to Nubar an English Premier, or as we should prefer to call him Chancellor, as head of the Administration, and thus, as Lord Cromer would confer always with him, to avoid all chances of collision ? The Khedive would retain his rank, his income, and his absolute authority within his palace, but the work of government would go on without his inter- ference. If he had any wishes he could communicate them to the Chancellor of Egypt or to Lord Cromer, and his views as those of the first Egyptian would naturally be considered, and if possible accepted; but there would be no Khedivial orders and no clashing of authority. The Chan- cellor would rule Egypt in all departments, guiding his Egyptian colleagues and directing his European Under- Secretaries. Lord colleagues, or, in other words, the British Government, would then be precisely in the position of the British Parliament, which virtually erects the Premier • the Khedive would be in the position of the Queen Premier; source of all authority, but using it always through the Premier ; and the people justly treated and governed by strict law would, though apparently powerless, be precisely in the position of the British minority after an election,—that is, governed by men they do not quite like, but governed on fixed principles and governed well. It seems to us that this would be a simpler road out of the troubles in Egypt, than a. apaamodic coercion of the Khedive, or even his removal. We cannot have an English Khedive ; and as we cannot manufacture Tewfiks, that is, sensible Pashas created by Providence to obey, we may be sure that any native sue- cessor to Abbas II. would be just as difficult to manage and perhaps more formidable. The example of the Indian Princes, who rule and yet obey, is nothing to the purpose. They have had a hundred years of sharp discipline, no one of them has any connection with Europe, only two of them— of the important Princes we mean—have States which touch the sea, and not one of them has an unbroken Hindoo or Mahommedan population. It is far easier to place substan- tial power in the hands of a Premier or" Chancellor" in the Continental sense, and through him carry out all necessary and clearly useful reforms. We have no doubt that Lord Cromer could find on the spot a fitting man, and one, too, who would work in cordial co-operation with himself,—a point which would be as important under the new regime as under the old.
We cannot see why France should object to this scheme, which in no way interferes with her projects or her pretensions, nor can we perceive where, if she did object, she would find legal foothold. The Khedive can legally appoint whom he pleases, and if for the sake of security or peace he appoints an Englishman, no one outside has any right of objection. The realities of things are not altered, for in the last resort Lord Cromer is Chancellor and something more. Nor are we at all con- vinced by the argument that the change is unnecessary, the Under-Secretaries, who are Europeans, being already Ministers. That is the fact, but it is not an acceptable fact. We may rely upon it as a cardinal result of experi- ence that in the East dodges never pay ; that the Euro- pean, to get the full benefit of his higher morale, must be straightforward and truthful even to brutality. The idea of the Under-Secretaries refusing the Ministers -access to their bureaux, as recently occurred, may have been very clever, and was undoubtedly necessary in a moment of emergency, but it is rather a device for romantic opera than for orderly and systematic government. We want power and responsibility to go together, and to see some one in Egypt who has a legal right to administer according to those European ideas of justice, of finance, of military discipline, and of engineering, which we are striving to make prevail. As it is inconvenient to temove the Khedive except in the last resort, he having as yet no direct heir, we ought, as we would suggest, to provide him with a European Chancellor through whom he can administer his small but rich and important dominion according to the European will. For it must never be forgotten that although the French keep on affirming that we are in Egypt only out of insolence and a greedy desire for self-aggrandisement, we are there by permission of _ Europe, as trustees of Europe, and with a mandate to carry on reforms upon European lines. Nubar, clever as he is, cannot quite enter into that idea heartily, nor will any Vizier of Egypt not an Englishman and trained to his post in one of the administrative departments.
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