Part 6 (1/2)
EGYPT
BY J.A. SPENDER
Editor of the _Westminster Gazette_, 1896 to 1922; Member of the Special Mission to Egypt, 1919-1920.
Mr. Spender said:--The Egyptian problem resembles the Indian and all other Eastern problems in that there is no simple explanation or solution of it. Among the many disagreeable surprises which awaited us after the war, none was more disagreeable than the discovery in March, 1919, that Egypt was in a state of rebellion. For years previously we had considered Egypt a model of imperial administration. We had pulled her out of bankruptcy and given her prosperity. We had provided her with great public works which had enriched both pasha and fellah. We had scrupulously refrained from exploiting her in our own interests. No man ever worked so disinterestedly for a country not his own as Lord Cromer for Egypt, and if ever a Nationalist movement could have been killed by kindness, it should have been the Egyptian. Nor were the Egyptian people ungrateful. I have talked to Egyptian Nationalists of all shades, and seldom found any who did not handsomely acknowledge what Great Britain had done for Egypt, but they asked for one thing more, which was that she should restore them their independence. ”We won it from the Turks,”
they said, ”and we cannot allow you to take it from us.”
This demand was no new thing, but it was brought to a climax by events during and after the war. When the war broke out, our representative in Egypt was still only ”Agent and Consul-General,” and was theoretically and legally on the same footing with the representative of all other Powers; when it ended, he was ”High Commissioner,” governing by martial law under a system which we called a ”protectorate.” This to the Egyptians seemed a definite and disastrous change for the worse.
Throughout the forty years of our occupation we have most carefully preserved the theory of Egyptian independence. We have occupied and administered the country, but we have never annexed it or claimed it to be part of the British Empire. We intervened in 1882 for the purpose of restoring order, and five years later we offered to withdraw, and were only prevented from carrying out our intention because the Sultan of Turkey declined, at the instigation of another Power, to sign the Firman which gave us the right of re-occupying the country if order should again be disturbed. In the subsequent years we gave repeated a.s.surances to Egyptians and to foreign Powers that we had no intention of altering the status of the country as defined in its theoretical government by Khedive, Egyptian Ministers, and Egyptian Council or a.s.sembly. And though it was true that in virtue of the army of occupation we were in fact supreme, by leaving the forms of their government untouched and refraining from all steps to legalise our position we rea.s.sured the Egyptians as to our ultimate objects.
In the eyes of the Egyptians the proclamation of the Protectorate and the conversion of the ”Agent and Consul-General” into a ”High Commissioner” armed with the weapons of martial law seriously prejudiced this situation, and though they acquiesced for the period of the war, they were determined to have a settlement with us immediately it was over, and took us very seriously at our word when we promised to review the whole situation when that time came. The truth about the ”Protectorate” was that we adopted it as a way out of the legal entanglement which would otherwise have converted the Egyptians into enemy aliens when their suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, entered the war against us, and we did it deliberately as the preferable alternative to annexing the country. But we have neither explained to the Egyptians nor made clear to ourselves what exactly we meant by it, and in the absence of explanations it was interpreted in Egypt as a first step to the extinction of Egyptian nationality.
AFTER-WAR MISTAKES
Had we acted wisely and expeditiously at the end of the war we might even then have avoided the trouble that followed. But when Egyptian ministers asked leave to come to London in December, 1918, we answered that the time was not opportune for these discussions, and when the Nationalist leaders proposed to send a delegation, we said that no good purpose could be served by their coming to Europe. This heightened the alarm, and the Nationalists retorted by raising their claims from ”complete autonomy” to ”complete independence,” and started a violent agitation. The Government retaliated by deporting Zaghlul to Malta, whereupon the country broke into rebellion. Lord Allenby now came upon the scene, and, while suppressing the rebellion, released Zaghlul and gave him and his delegation the permission to go to Europe which had been refused in January. It was now decided to send out the Milner Mission, but there was a further delay of seven months before it started, and during all that time agitation continued.
When the Mission arrived it quickly discovered that there was no possible ”Const.i.tution under the Protectorate” which would satisfy the Egyptians, and that the sole alternatives were further suppression or the discovery of some means of settlement which dispensed with the Protectorate. The Mission unanimously came to the conclusion that though the first was mechanically possible if the cost and discredit were faced, the second was not only feasible but far preferable, and that the right method was a treaty of Alliance between Great Britain and Egypt, recognising Egypt as a sovereign State, but affording all necessary guarantees for imperial interests. Working on those lines the Mission gradually broke down the boycott proclaimed against them, convinced the Egyptians of their goodwill, induced all parties of Egyptian Nationalists to come to London, and there negotiated the basis of the Treaty which was described in the Report. The main points were that there must be a British force in the country--not an army of occupation, but a force to guard Imperial communications--that there must be British liaison officers for law and order and finance, that the control of foreign policy must remain in the hands of Great Britain, and that the Soudan settlement of 1898 must remain untouched, but that with these exceptions the Government of Egypt should be in fact what it had always been in theory: a Government of Egyptians by Egyptians.
Had the Government accepted this in December, 1920 (instead of in March, 1922), and instructed Lord Milner to go forward and draft a treaty on this basis, it is extremely probable that a settlement would have been reached in a few weeks; but Ministers, unhappily, were unable to make up their minds, and there was a further delay of three months before the Egyptian Prime Minister, Adli Pasha, was invited to negotiate with the Foreign Office. By this time the Nationalist parties which the Mission had succeeded in uniting on a common platform had fallen apart, and the extremists once more started a violent agitation and upbraided the moderates for tamely waiting on the British Government, which had evidently meant to deceive them. The situation had, therefore, changed again for the worse when Adli came to London in April, 1921, and it was made worse still by what followed. The negotiations dragged over six months, and finally broke down for reasons that have never been explained, but the probability is that Egypt had now got entangled in Coalition domestic politics, and that the ”Die-Hards” claimed to have their way in Egypt in return for their consent to the Irish settlement.
The door was now banged in the face of all schools of Egyptian Nationalists, and Lord Allenby was instructed to send to the Sultan the unhappy letter in which Egypt was peremptorily reminded that she was a ”part of the communications of the British Empire,” and many other things said which were specially calculated to wound Egyptian susceptibilities.
The Egyptian Prime Minister resigned, and for the next five months Lord Allenby endeavoured to govern the country by martial law without an Egyptian Ministry. Then he came to London with the unanimous support of British officials in Egypt to tell the Government that the situation was impossible and a settlement imperative. The Government gave way and British policy was again reversed, but three opportunities had now been thrown away, and at the fourth time of asking the difficulties were greatly increased. The Nationalists were now divided and the Moderates in danger of being violently attacked if they accepted a moderate solution. It was found necessary to deport Zaghlul Pasha and to put several of his chief adherents on trial. Suspicions had been aroused by the delays and vacillations of the British Government. A settlement by treaty was now impossible, and Lord Allenby had to give unconditionally the recognition of sovereignty which the Mission intended to be part of the treaty, putting the Egyptians under an honourable pledge to respect British rights and interests. In the circ.u.mstances there was nothing else to do, but it is greatly to be desired that when the const.i.tution has been completed and the new a.s.sembly convened, an effort should be made to revert to the method of the treaty which particularly suited the Egyptian character and would be regarded as a binding obligation by Egyptians.
THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE
In regard to the future, there is only one thing to do and that is to work honestly to its logical conclusion the theory now adopted, that Egypt is a self-governing independent State. Egyptians must be encouraged to shoulder the full responsibilities of a self-governing community. It would be folly to maintain a dual system which enabled an Egyptian Government to shunt the difficult or disagreeable part of its task on to a British High Commissioner. Whatever the system of Government, there is no escape for either party from the most intimate mutual relations. Geography and circ.u.mstances decree them, but there is no necessary clash between the imperial interests which require us to guard the highway to the East that runs through Egyptian territory, and the full exercise of their national rights by Egyptians. Egyptians must remember that for many years to come the world will hold us responsible for law and order and solvency in Egypt, and we on our part must remember that Egyptians have the same pride in their country as other peoples, and that they will never consent to regard it as merely and primarily ”a communication of the British Empire.” In any wise solution of the question any sudden breach with the past will be avoided, and Egyptians will of their own free will enlist the aid of British officials who have proved their devotion to the country by loyal and skilful service. The hope of the future lies in subst.i.tuting a free partners.h.i.+p for a domination of one race by the other, and with a genial and good-humoured people, such as the Egyptians essentially are, there should be no difficulty in restoring friends.h.i.+p and burying past animosities. But there must be a real determination on both sides to make Egyptian independence a success and no disposition on either to give merely a reluctant consent to the conditions agreed upon by them and then to throw the onus of failure on the others.
I deeply regret the schism between the different schools of Nationalists in Egypt. As we have seen in Ireland, Nationalism is threatened from within as well as from without, and it is a great misfortune that in settling the Egyptian problem we missed the moment in 1920 when the different Nationalist parties were all but united on a common platform.
Extremist leaders have the power of compelling even their friends to deport them and treat them as enemies, and I a.s.sume that Zaghlul put Lord Allenby under this compulsion, when he decided that his deportation was necessary. But Zaghlul was one of the few Nationalist leaders who were of peasant origin, and his followers stand for something that needs to be strongly represented in the Government if it is not to take its complexion merely from the towns and the wealthy interests. The fellah is a very different man from what he was in the days of Ismail, and it is improbable that he will again submit to oppression as his forefathers did but it is eminently desirable that there should be in the Government men whom he would accept as leaders and whom he could trust to speak for him.
Above all, it is to be hoped that, having conceded the independence of Egypt, we shall not slip back into governing the country by martial law with the aid of one party among the Egyptians. That would be merely an evasion of the difficulty and a postponement of troubles. There are a good many difficulties yet to be overcome, and the progress of events will need careful watching by Liberals in and out of the House of Commons, but if at length we steer a straight course and bring political good sense to the details of the problem, there is no reason why we should not satisfy the Egyptians and put Anglo-Egyptian relations on a good and enduring basis. In dealing with Egypt as with all Eastern countries, it should constantly be borne in mind that manners, character, and personality are a chief part of good politics. To a very large extent the estrangement has been caused by a failure to understand and respect the feelings of the Egyptian people, and here, as in India, it is important to understand that the demand of the Eastern man is not only for self-government, but also for a new status which will enable him to maintain his self-respect in his dealings with the West.
THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT
BY RAMSAY MUIR
Professor of Modern History in the University of Manchester, 1913 to 1921.
Mr. Ramsay Muir said:--One of the most marked, and one of the most ominous, features of the political situation to-day is that there is an almost universal decline of belief in and respect for our system of government. This undermining of the confidence that a healthy community ought to feel in its inst.i.tutions is a perturbing fact which it is the plain duty of all good Liberals to consider seriously. We need not be deterred by the old gibe that Liberalism has always cared more about political machinery than about social reorganisation. The gibe was never true. But, in any case, no projects of social reorganisation have much chance of success unless the political machinery by means of which they have to be carried into effect is working efficiently. Moreover, since most of the projects of social reform which are being urged upon our attention involve an enlargement of the activities of the State, it is obvious that we shall be running the risk of a breakdown unless we make sure that the machinery of the State is capable of meeting the demands which are made upon it. We must be satisfied that our engine has sufficient power before we require it to draw a double load. In truth, one reason why the engine of government is not working well is that it has been required to do a great deal more work than it was designed for.
The time has come to consider carefully the character and capacity of our machinery of government in view of the increased demands which are certain to be made upon it in the future.
Our national political system may be divided into two parts. On the one hand, there is the working machine, which goes on, year in, year out, whether Parliament is sitting or not, and which would still go on quite well for a time if Parliament never met again. We call it the Government, and we habitually and rightly hold it responsible for every aspect of national policy and action, for legislation and finance as well as for foreign policy and internal administration. On the other hand, there is what Burke used to call ”the control on behalf of the nation,” mainly exercised through Parliament, whose chief function is to criticise and control the action of Government, and to make the responsibility of Government to the nation a real and a felt responsibility. The discontents of to-day apply to both parts of the system, and I propose to deal with them in turn, first inquiring what is wrong with the working machine of government and how it can be amended, and then turning to consider how far the control on behalf of the nation is working badly, and how it can be made more efficient.