THE PROGRESS OF EGYPT.
THE speech delivered on Wednesday by Mr. Justice Scott, in returning thanks on being made a Free- man of the Borough of Wigan, is perhaps the most significant account of our doings in the Nile Valley that has yet appeared. It is not the official report of an active administrator, who is certain to see only the bright side ; nor, again, is it the hurried estimate of a traveller un- versed in the conditions of the problem, and ready to take anything and everything on trust. Instead, it is the care- ful verdict of a man possessed of a judicially trained mind, and besides, of a man of wide practical experience in governing Orientals. Mr. Justice Scott's horizon is not bounded by the Egyptian desert. He passed eight years of his life on the Indian Bench, and hence he has special means of knowing whether our work is being really well done in Egypt. He can compare it with the administra- tion of a dozen Indian provinces and semi-independent States. Without doubt the test is a very severe one, for the Indian standard of efficiency is high. Since, then, our administration in Egypt can be judged thus, and not found wanting, we have every reason to be proud. It is true that Mr. Justice Scott now holds the post of Judicial Adviser to the Egyptian Government, and that his judgment might therefore be challenged as not altogether independent. That he has not been influenced by this in the least is, we feel, however, certain ; and his judgment will, we believe, be found to represent the true facts of the case. Another advantage possessed by Mr. Justice Scott is the fact that he knew Egypt before the coining of the English, and therefore can compare its present condition with that of twenty years ago. He was in Egypt as a barrister from 1872 till 1875, and as a Judge from 1875 till 1882. In 1882 he went to India for eight years, to serve as one of the Judges of the Bombay High Court ; and in 1890 returned to Egypt as Judicial Adviser to the Egyptian Government. His total qualifications, there- fore, for forming a judgment worth attending to are ex- ceedingly great. They may be recapitulated. He is by training not an official, but a barrister,—a class in Eastern countries by no means inclined to accept the regulation official view, but disposed, if anything, to be over-critical and independent ; and by the accident of his being away from Egypt during eight years, he can compute the amount of progress achieved with far more success than a man who had grown up with the improvements.
The net result of the judgment, formed under these specially auspicious circumstances, is contained in the following propositions, which may be given in Mr. Justice Scott's own words :—" I will lay down two propositions," he said,—" (1), that England since the occupation has done, and continues to do, great good in Egypt; (2), that the good England has done will not be permanent, will not last, unless she remains in the Valley of the Nile some years longer as the friendly guide and Power." In en- forcing the truth of these propositions, Mr. Scott showed how terrible was the condition to which Egypt had been reduced by native misgovernment. Taxes had been piled on taxes till the peasant could bear no more. Public works, such as they were, were carried out under the most wasteful and inefficient system possible, the system of forced labour, while the administration of justice was utterly rotten. Even the Army was worthless, and, in a word, there was not a sound plank in the fabric of Government. When the revolt of Arabi took place, the whole structure tumbled to pieces ; and when we occupied the Delta, we found ourselves in possession of a country that not only was miserably poor, but was in a condition of complete anarchy. It became the duty of our officials to create order out of chaos, and this, with the help of the Khedive, they succeeded in doing. We put the debt on a fairer and securer basis, we reduced the pressure of taxation, and yet greatly increased its total productiveness, we raised an army of thirteen thousand well-drilled and trustworthy soldiers, we created a police, we founded schools, we abolished forced labour and the use of the stick and the kourbash, we established a civil service, and, perhaps best boon of all, we gave the country an uncorrupt and efficient judicial system. Further, we have introduced into the cities the beginnings of municipal government. Alexandria is already self-govern- ing, and eight other big towns are to be endowed with municipal privileges. When we think that this has been achieved in less than ten years, in spite of foreign opposi- tion of the terrible weight of the debt accumulated by Ismail Pasha, and of the troubles in the Soudan and on the coast of the Red Sea, the result seems nothing less than marvellous. If we had failed, or only partially succeeded in Egypt, the case for not leaving it prematurely would not be nearly so strong as it is. Our extraordinary success, and the benefits we have been able to confer on the Egyptians, peremptorily forbid an immediate departure. Not until we can feel sure that our good work will not be undone by evacuation, can we evacuate Egypt. Experience in India has shown that though it is possible to organise a country, and then restore it to its native rulers, it is absolutely necessary that the reforms introduced by us should have really struck root. If they have not, evacuation means ruin. Hence the im- possibility of fixing any stated time for evacuation. Upon the certainty that evacuation would at present mean the destruction of the institutions we have planted in Egypt, Mr. Justice Scott is sufficiently decisive. Though his language is cautious, he is clearly opposed to the policy of leaving Egypt before the Egyptians are able to prevent the return of the old regime. " The fellah," he says, "has excellent qualities, kit he has not yet reached that independence or that capacity for self-government which follows on the long-continued operation of law and justice. The new system is not yet part of his nature. Nature never moves by leaps. The transformation must take time, and until the old order has more completely given place to the new, the British Army of Occupation renders most essential service. There you have the actual position."
One of the facts of the Egyptian occupation often lost sight of is clearly brought out in Mr. Justice Scott's address. People often talk as if the Egyptian Administration were purely English, and as if we held the Delta to the exclusion of other Europeans. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Egyptian Administration is European, not English, and all that we reserve for ourselves is the ulti- mate directing force. That is purely English ; but we show no jealousy of other Europeans, and work through them as readily as through Englishmen. Mr. Justice Scott gives a good example of this when he states the condition of affairs in his own department. " My right- hand men, as regards the native tribunals," he says, "are a Frenchman, who trains young Egyptians to be lawyers ; an Italian and a Belgian, who watch over the work of the Court ; and three Egyptians—first-rate fellows, too— who inspect the whole judicial business of the country. Thus the work in Egypt is not wholly done by English hands ; but the directing force in the last resort is English." Throughout the Egyptian Civil Service it is the same, and Frenchmen and Italians are to be found everywhere in Government employ. Nor does this arise from any mere respect for the vested interests of those Europeans whom we found in Egypt. Only the other day the most coveted post in Egypt, that of Director of Antiquities, was given to a Frenchman, M. de Morgan. Neither Englishmen, nor Frenchmen, nor Italians will, however, long be asked to fill the ordinary administrative posts, for natives capable of doing the work are being trained and brought forward. Very nearly all the minor, and a good many of the higher posts, will be filled by Egyptians, and the English will do nothing more than keep control at the top of the four most important branches of the service,—the Army, Finance, the Administration of Justice, and Public Works. After all, Egypt is not a big place, and a dozen or so of English officials would be quite enough to ensure efficient administration, provided always that a sufficient military force remained in the country. There must be something to remind the turbulent section of the Egyptian people that in the last resort the Englishmen are to have their way. Unquestionably Mr. Justice Scott's speech will do good, for it will remind people that our efforts in Egypt have been worth making.
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