LORD SALISBURY IN EGYPT.
WE hardly understand the excessive bitterness which some Liberal politicians, as well as journalists, are exhibiting against the Ministry. They were admitted to power by the majority for reasons which seemed to them good and sufficient, and which were good and sufficient ; and they ought, until they commit some error, to be allowed to exercise that power. That does not mean that they should have " a free hand " to enter into any engagements they please, or to undertake rash enterprises ; but it does m ?lin that they should be allowed some freedom, and should not be treated as mere clerks,—to be scolded whenever they presume to think for themselves, even upon matters of detail, and watched as if it were certain that they would bolt with the till. The Tory Ministry must, in the interest of English progress, be crushed at the elections ; and it must be prevented from doing acts objectionable to all Liberals and not to be recalled ; but it was not placed in power to abstain from giving any orders whatever, and if it gives any, it must perforce give those which it approves. In the instance of Egypt, for example, the criticism of the moment is quite un- reasonable. Lord Salisbury, as Foreign Secretary, is sending Sir H. Drummond Wolff to see and report on the condition of things in Cairo, and that selection is summarily condemned. He is also suspected of a desire to remove Khedive Tewfik, and is therefore denounced for that design in advance in terms which would hardly be too severe if he had ordered that feeble personage to be beheaded.
We cannot concur in these criticisms. Sir H. Drummond Wolff is an extremely offensive politician with a bitter tongue, and, when carried away by that tongue, no judgment. At least, we cannot imagine how a man possessed of a sound judgment could, when just appointed to an important foreign mission, deliver the wild diatribe against Russia with which Sir H. D. Wolff entertained the electors of Woodstock. To annoy a great Power without reason is not the way to gain the vote of that Power in Egyptian affairs, and Lord Salisbury must have winced when he read the speech of his nominee. Moreover, Sir H. D. Wolff has for years been a director of the Egyptian Bank, and may, like every European so placed, exaggerate in his own mind the claim of the creditors of Egypt to treat that unhappy dependency as a mere estate. Those are reasons against the selection, and the second is a strong one ; but, on the other hand, Sir H. D. Wolff is not a worse politician than Lord Salisbury, who is to govern him, and a decidedly better one than Lord Randolph Churchill, who is to support him. He is no more on the side of the Bondholders than Mr. Goschen in his Report showed himself to be ; and he managed a similar affair in Roumelia very well indeed. He there helped to rescue a pro- vince from the Turk without separating it from Turkey, which was delicate and difficult work, closely akin to the work wanted now. That he abused the Khedive may be unfortunate ; but the Khedive is always being abused, and Sir H. D. Wolff's abuse was not of the unforgiveable kind. No Oriental Prince cares one straw for being suspected of unscrupulous finesse, even if that finesse has resulted in a massacre of infidels. If his subjects do not hear of it, he cares nothing for the charge ; and if they do hear of it and believe it, they will think him a better Mussulman and a cleverer man than they do now. The Khedive, we may be sure, will receive Sir H. D. Wolff just like anybod? else sent to him on a mission ; that is, he will consider him an agent for whom his master is responsible. In any case, Lord Salisbury knows the state of affairs ; and if knowing it, he is not to be allowed to choose even an agent to make inquiries, he had better be sent away. He certainly will do no good in fetters of that kind.
But then, it is said, Lord Salisbury intends, if he can, to remove Tewfik, and that is shocking. Why is it shocking ? It is argued that we are pledged to Tewfik personally, and, if so, of course his removal must be forbidden ; but a pledge so imprudent is certainly not usual in British diplomacy, and even if it exists, cannot extend to an inquiry whether Tewfik cares to remain. If he would like to depart, his departure would unquestionably be a gain. Of all the evils we have had to contend with in Egypt, the inability of the Khedive to administer his country by just and reasonable methods has been the greatest. His unpopularity may be due to his friendship for us ; but his inefficiency is not due to his unpopularity, but to his inability to make himself feared. He was required to govern on European prin- ciples, but he was not required to adopt European methods ; and if he had flogged every peculator, hung every unjust judge, and shot down Arabi when he mutinied, nobody would have interfered with him. Sir A. Colvin, indeed, recommended the last measure, and the Khedive had not the resolution to adopt it. There are a dozen Mussulman nobles in the world, and certainly half-a-dozen in India, who in Tewfik's position would have made of the British occupation a source of strength, and would have employed a period during which insurrection was physically impossible to place the whole Administration upon a sound basis. Tewfik has not only not done this, but has so governed that the hatred borne towards him is a serious embarrassment to any evacuation of the country. He has virtues, one of which is a power of self-suppression, and another passive courage ; but he is essentially an Egyptian fellah, and if we withdrew, would either be killed at once, or so governed by the Pashas that Egypt would be a den of cruelties. That the problem, owing partly to its permanent conditions, partly to the immorality of Europe—which protects a financial Ring in skinning the people—and partly to radical mistakes in our own policy, is now nearly insoluble, we grant ; but perhaps the solution of alt others most moderate and feasible is the retirement of Tewfik, the substitution of his son as Khedive, and the government of the Valley during the minority by a heavy-handed Regent, who ought to be an Englishman, but might be a picked Mussulman administrator like the Pasha whom Lord Dufferin chose for Syria. Such a man could, with the help of an English financier, re-establish order, organise a frontier force, and pay the bondholders, England guaranteeing a minimum rate of three per cent. during the minority. That, which in outline is the scheme attributed by the Press to Lord Salisbury—truly or falsely we do not know—may not be the best one, and is certainly not the one we should desire, —we maintaining still that we should offer Europe the alternatives of a ten years' surrender of the country to English guardianship, or immediate evacuation—bat it is not so unreasonable that Lord Salisbury on a mere rumour of it should be summarily condemned. What do his critics expect a Tory Minister to do in Egypt Precisely what a Liberal one did ? That is surely asking Lord. Salisbury to do exactly what he condemned his prede- cessors for doing, and, in fact, asking him, from his point of view, to be base as well as submissive. We have never been able to support the Liberal policy in Egypt, though it was based upon a noble idea ; but there is one policy which would be at once more immoral and more inefficient than theirs, and that is their policy without its inspiring idea, and carried out by unwilling agents in the teeth of their strongest convictions. We have not the slightest confidence in Lord Salisbury's ability to settle the Egyptian question ; but he is bound to try, and Liberals are bound either to remove him or let him try in his own way. Otherwise, their alternative is to propose a vote of " No Confidence,' and send him away.
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