The Times announces that Colonel Gordon, the Governor- General of
Soudan, is about to return home, and that the effort to suppress the Egyptian slave-trade and to keep order in that vast region will probably be abeaidoned. There is no money to go on with, the Bondholders, supported by the Governments of France and Britain, seizing all. Colonel Gordon himself has of late been endeavouring to limit the area of his own direct authority, aware that the burden was too great for Egypt, and on his departure the powerful slave-hunt- ing clans will recommence operations which will be secretly connived at by the Egyptian officials, who cannot get money, and who have never been sincerely opposed to slavery, as, indeed, Mahommedans cannot be, though Mahommed him- self intended to make the system lighter. The total results, therefore, of Lord Salisbury's policy in Egypt have been that Egypt is no better governed, that France has halved England's influence at Cairo, that there is danger of an international pro- tectorate, that a grand experiment in the Soudan has failed, and that Bondholders will, for a few months, receive interest on double the sum they advanced. All which is evidence that Lord Salisbury is far-sighted.
Previous page
