SIR H. D. WOLFF'S RETURN.
IF the Opposition attempt to make much capital out of Sir H. D. Wolff's return without obtaining the ratification of the Anglo-Turkish Convention, they will be ill-advised.
The object for which Sir H. D. Wolff was working at Con- stantinople was not, in our opinion, a desirable object. We care much more for the welfare of the people of Egypt than we care for the economy to be effected in the British Army by the withdrawal of the British force there ; and we gravely fear that the withdrawal of that force, even under the con- fear that the withdrawal of that force, even under the con- ditions to which Turkey had assented before France intervened, would have been followed by the sacrifice of all that we had
done for the Egyptian people, even though the Convention had proved sufficient to prevent the interference of any other Power, and to protect Egypt from the tribes of the Soudan. The Convention to which both England and Turkey had agreed, but which,—fortunately, as we think,—is now only so much waste-paper, is printed in the despatches just presented to Parliament ; and it is significant that while, by the words of the fifth article, the British Government had obtained the right to return to Egypt " if there are reasons to fear an invasion from without, or if order and security in the interior (l'ordre et la se",:uritd a rinterieur) are disturbed, or if the Khediviate of Egypt refuses to execute its duties towards the Sovereign Court or its international obligations," there is no condition which would have enabled it to interfere in the case of gross misgovernment, so long as "order and security " had not been disturbed, and the international obligations of the Khedive had been felffiled. "Order and security" are not expressions large enough to cover a beneficent and just govern- ment, and we cannot see that Lord Salisbury had made any conditions which would have secured Egypt from falling once more tinder the control of greedy Pashas, so long as they could manage to keep down rebellion and to pay the interest on the debt. For this reason we cannot pretend to regret the blind intervention of France, which has only succeeded, as far as we can see, in postponing indefinitely the evacuation of Egypt by our troops, and therefore in prolonging indefinitely the control of our Government over the Egyptian Administra- tion. We cannot regret the consequences which the witless jealousy of France has brought about. More, we believe that they will be fatal to the object which France had at heart, and will be conducive to the object which, though only too secondary in the mind of the British Government, is still a main object with it so long as our occupation lasts, —we mean the reform of the Egyptian Administration. If Lord Salisbury deserves censure at all, it is for caring too exclusively for the very ends which the Opposition desire, and for endeavouring to effect the evacuation irrespective of every- thing except our external interests in the Mediterranean,—for which we believe that the Convention had provided fairly enough. But for the just government of the Egyptian people it certainly had not provided ; only, that is an object which the Opposition alsohave regarded as entirely subordinate, and which is, indeed, quite inconsistent with any early evacuation.
If the Government is to be attacked on the subject of Sir Drummond Wolff's failure, the attack is certain to be ineffectual. The Government has been at once patient and dignified in pursuing its object, and though that object seems to us quite unsatisfactory, yet it is at least the same as that for which the Opposition is mainly interested. No one will venture to blame the British Government for not putting such a pressure on Turkey as would have involved us in a material guarantee of Turkey against France and Russia ; and short of this,—which no party in England would have justified,—Lord Salisbury certainly did all he could to obtain the ratification of the Convention. We cannot see that it was any business of oars to foil this last move of France, the more especially as our predominance in Egypt would not have been secured, but diminished, by the success of the Convention. The right attitude for England to take under the circumstances of this singularly ill-advised interference of France is precisely that which Lord Salisbury has takent—namely, to accept cheerfully the maintenance of the status quo directly it became evident that our consent to evacuate Egypt would not satisfy the one Mediterranean Power which has an interest in that region approaching in magnitude to our own, and this the Power at whose instigation it was that the evacuation was so earnestly urged upon us. Lord Salis- bury showed spirit and firmness in declaring as he did that we would not leave Egypt at all while any important Mediterranean Power refused its sanction to our conditional
return under the circumstances indicated in Article V. of the Convention. We believe that the country will support him in stipulating for that condition, though the country will not regret that the Convention has failed in consequence of his firm- ness in adhering to that stipulation. As a question of party, the failure of the Convention will certainly afford no room for a vote of censure. Lord Salisbury has gone as far as his opponents would have gone in endeavouring to obtain from Turkey terms under which he could safely retire from Egypt, and, indeed, had obtained terms which were very satisfactory from every point of view except the point of view of those who desire to see Egypt well and beneficently governed. That is, unfortunately, not a point of view on which the modern non-interventionists are at all disposed to insist ; and as they will certainly not venture to condemn Lord Salisbury for not carrying matters with a high hand at the imminent risk of war on behalf of a Convention by which England would gain nothing in influence and would lose something in self-respect, we think that they would do well to drop all formal attack on the Government for the failure of Sir H. D. Wolff's mission. In the meantime, we are not at all sorry that that mission is at an end.
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