408 Appendix II 



a weak prince and weaker people until such time as Egypt may fall to her 

 share of the Ottoman spoils. 



The attempt, therefore, if made at all, must be made honestly and with 

 the thoroughgoing support of a sympathetic English representative, other- 

 wise it cannot but fail. 



(3) The third solution of placing Egypt under joint European guardian- 

 ship and political control, is one against which, however it may recommend 

 itself as a settlement of European differences, I feel bound to protest in 

 native Egyptian interests. 



Under English rule the native populations have been carefully protected, 

 and their rights maintained against the encroachment of foreign colonists. 

 But under any other European rule than England's the reverse would cer- 

 tainly be the case. Egypt under French or Italian or joint European con- 

 trol would be exploited in whatever direction it was thought that revenue 

 could be best increased. The fellahin now enjoying their hereditary lands 

 would be speedily dispossessed and reduced to a practical slavery worse 

 than any they have hitherto known, and as a race would probably be little 

 by little displaced, the demoralized, and extirpated. 



As already remarked, the fellahin in 1882, alarmed at this very danger 

 under the Anglo-French control, had asserted themselves politically and 

 forced their rulers to grant them a means of self-defence in the form of a 

 Constitutional Government. They had acquired the support of a large 

 army with sufficient prestige to deter attack from more than one of the 

 Powers, and they were backed by much sympathy east and west in their 

 attempted reforms. Having for our own reasons suppressed all these pos- 

 sibilities of good for them, it would be a supreme injustice to overlook their 

 interests now in the settlement to be made. To Mr. Gladstone especially, 

 who is so largely responsible for the intervention, it should be a matter of 

 honourable concern that this race and people should not perish. 



(4) To withdraw the British garrison under present conditions and 

 without a political settlement would be to court future difficulties. 



Sir Evelyn Baring's policy of the last five years, based as it has been 

 on the view that Egypt was to remain a permanent annex of the Indian 

 Empire, has practically destroyed all authority there but that of the Eng- 

 lish Occupation. Egypt's present government is a mixed European, Ar- 

 menian, and native bureaucracy controlled by half-a-dozen Englishmen 

 with the British garrison at their back. No native government in any 

 sense of authority exists. The Khedive, indolent and without initiative, is 

 a mere dummy Prince. His Ministers, most of them Turks of advanced 

 years, have been chosen for their pliancy rather than their ability. Their 

 names have no weight, and their duties are little more than to sign without 

 reading the documents placed before them. The great departments of Fi- 

 nance, Irrigation, War, and latterly Justice, are directed by Englishmen. 

 The army and police have English superior officers; and even the Interior 

 is, I believe, in process of being taken over by us. 



This Anglicized condition of the Government could not long survive a 

 withdrawal of the English troops. Even were it consented to by France, 

 it would rapidly lose its authority. English control, though not unpopular 



