The Sudan Past and Present
Toe title of Mr. Crabites' latest work upon the Sudan does not give so clear a description of its contents as those of his two previous books. For, white in the first fifteen chapters he tells us how the Sudan was won, in the remaining nine chapters he sets out a series of arguments with the view of persuading England to give it up.
Before dealing with the argumentative section of the book, a tribute should be paid to the dear and concise account which he gives, in the historical section, of the years between the fall of Khartoum in January, 1885, and the signature of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of January, 1899. His description of Sir Charles Wilson's adventures after he withdrew before the Mahdi's victorious forces and of the earlier stages of Kitehener's advance up the Nile and across the desert, are particularly vivid. The story of the later stages of Kitchener's campaign and of the crowning battle of Omdurman is not so adequate ; but the book does not set out to be a military record and there is little ground for complaint here.
It is when Mr. Crabites comes to deal with the future of the Sudan and with the tangled political events in Egypt since the dose of the Great War that he lays himself open to criticism. It is true that, as a man with long legal experience, he endeavours to put before his readers both sides of the case. For example, he shows the profoundest respect for the work done by Lord Cromer, and he pays a remarkable tribute to the British members of the Sudanese service. "It may be doubted," he says, whether any civil service in the history of the world has ever attained that degree of real merit, efficiency and usefulness which has characterized the bureaucracy of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from the date of its birth until the present moment."
But he does England and the English people less than justice when he thinks that they could be induced to throw over the whole of the work they have done for the Sudan if it were once shown that a continuance of the work would involve a charge on the British Exchequer. He anticipates (quite mistakenly) that, owing to the decreasing yield of the Gezira cotton plantations, England may be called upon before long to meet the dividend charges which she guaranteed on the Sudan loan of thirteen millions, and he accordingly suggests that, to avoid such a possibility, she should hand over the Sudan to Egypt.
In support of his contention he quotes, at the close of his fine chapter, some words which Gordon wrote in 1884: The Sudan is a useless possession, ever was and ever will be so." He does not, however, point out that these words referred to the holding of the Sudan by Egypt and that they were preceded by the remark,"It would be an iniquity to reconquer these people and then hand them back to the Egyptians without guarantees of future good government." Nor does he refer to the remark which Gordon made about the Sudan in his journals a few months later: "As for giving it back to Egypt, in two years' time, we should have another Mahdi."
• These remarks clearly show that the last thing which -Gordon desired was to place the Egyptians in command of the Sudanese. Those wbo know the Sudan best feel today just as Gordon did on this point and assure us that, if England withdrew, the land would revert to anarchy.
The Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of January 19th, 1899, provided that Great Britain and Egypt should be partners 'in the government of the Sudan, though the actual dominance of Great Britain in the administration was secured by the -provision that the Governor-General should only be appointed on the recommendation of the British Government. For -more than twenty years all went well. But, after Egypt , had been granted conditional independence in November, 1922, a movement for changing the status of the Sudan was set on foot by the Nationalist Party, whose leader, the late Zagblul Pasha, declared, as Mr. Crabites tells us, that he would demand "complete evacuation of the Sudan by the British."
. it was this demand which Zaghlul pressed when he canie to England in the summer of 1924 to open negotiations.
Before he arrived, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, then Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister, stated in Parliament (July 10th) that "while the negotiations are pending neither Egypt nor ourselves ought to destroy the status quo." mr.
Crabites quotes these words but omits- to mention that in the same speech Mr. MacDonald made the following emphatic pronouncement :
"It must clearly be understood that Great Britain cannot throw of its responsibilities contracted to the Sudan and the Sudanese by withdrawing and handing the government of that country over to any other government. . . We must stand by the people of the Sudan.. We have a moral obligation to them."
The Labour Ministry, who might have been expected to go further than the Conservatives in the way of concessions, were adamant upon the question of the Sudan. They felt, as all other Ministers have felt, that the tie which unites England to that country is one that cannot be broken. For not only does the Sudan now form an important link in the great chain of air-ports which Imperial Airways have stretched across the African continent, but—what is of deeper significance—it is bound to this country by memories of long toil and struggle crowned by a hero's death.
Apart from these questions of high politics, there is much in the latter part of Mr. Crabites' book which deserves the attention of those who are interested in Egypt and the Sudan, especially the chapters on the waters of the Nile and the cotton plantations in the Gezira. Cotton, the
Sudan's chief industry, is shown to be in a depressed con- dition; but fortunately news has just come to hand of the discovery of a new type of plant that bids fair to be capable of resisting the Gezira cotton-blight. This may mean a brighter outlook for the industry than that foreshadowed
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