TOPICS OF THE DAY.
EGYPT.
THE Government has still to explain what "British in- terest" has induced it to depart from the old and well- understood policy of Great Britain in Egypt. Such an interest must exist, for without it, the position of the Ministry becomes visibly untenable. They will not, after abandon- ing the Spanish, the Turkish, and the Mexican Bondholders, venture to admit that they have instigated a Revolu- tion solely in the interest of the holders of Egyptian Bonds. That would be to admit that while they care nothing about the prosperity of the general body of quiet investors, even when misled, as in the Turkish case, by official talk about regenerated Turkey, they are prepared to take orders from any financial " Ring " strong enough and clever enough to apply political pressure, and to secure a portion of the European Press. That would be the simple truth, but they will not admit that. And they cannot, with any decency, plead their concern for the unfortunate peasantry of Egypt. They have for three years steadily refused to interfere in favour of the far more unfortunate Christ- ian peasantry of Turkey, to whom they were pledged by written Treaty. Their chief sneered at the sufferings of Bul- garians. They protected the Ambassador who declared that it did not matter how many Christians had been massacred, if it was the interest of Great Britain to uphold . Turkey. They replaced the Macedonians under the authority of the Sultan. They resist the enfranchisement of the unhappy people of Thessaly and Epirus. They have spent mil- lions, and risked a great war, to keep up the oppressive throne of an insolvent Sultan, and they cannot without cynical indecency plead that they are appalled by the insolvency and Oppression of the Khedive. They must find a "British interest to justify them, and a strong one, for they have broken, to no apparent purpose, with all the traditions of British statesmanship. It has been for a generation the British policy to maintain the semi-independence of Egypt, the right of its hereditary Pasha to act without reference to the wishes of his nominal Suzerain. Even these Ministers exerted them- selves at the commencement of the Russo-Turkish war to obtain pledges that Egypt should be regarded as outside the sphere of operations, although Egyptian troops were sent into the field. Successive Governments have made treaties with the Khedive. They have abolished in his favour the "capitulations," which are not abolished in Turkey. They have thanked him, and not the Sultan, for according the right of sending English troops to India and Native troops to Malta. They have, in fact, treated Egypt throughout as an auto- nomous, though tributary State. And now, for no reason yet revealed, acting behind the back of Parliament, and without informing the people, they have either allowed or compelled the Sultan to perform acts of supreme authority which vir- tually re-establish the Porte in direct control over Egypt. They have induced him to depose the Khedive, and of course, if the Sultan on inducement can depose the Khedive, he can also depose him proprio motu, and the new Viceroy henceforward is merely the Sultan's Agent. The Sultan feels that himself, for while deposing Ismail, he has also recalled the " /rade," or Sovereign Decree, of 1873, under which the Khedive was enabled to make Treaties, and to keep an "Egyptian " instead of a Turkish army, and will recognise hereafter only the Trade of 1841. The new Viceroy can make no more treaties, and any arrangements into which the Powers may desire his successor, Tewfik, to enter must be settled at Constantinople, where England has no special authority, and where the ruling group want, above everything else in the world, cash down. There never was such a blow struck at the influence of Great Britain in Egypt, or such a needless and gratuitous extension made of Russian influence in Cairo.
All this has been done, moreover, on the sudden, without Treparation, and without a definite programme for the future. Nothing can be more certain than that until Prince Bismarck had interfered, England and France had agreed to let the Khedive do his best or worst in managing his own affairs. It was not till France was annoyed with German interference, that England suddenly resolved upon a violent course. In conse- quence, though Ismail has been deposed, not only has no provision whatever been made for the good government of Egypt, but the Powers have been precluded from making one without the consent of the Turkish Government, which is matchless in delaying or resisting reforms. No new Treaties
are to be made at Cairo. If Tewfik turns out an Egyptian Rehoboam, there is no power of restraining him ; or if, which is much more probable, he proves incompetent, his father's severe ascendancy having taken all energy out of him, there is no power of making him go in the right path, except by moving the group at Constantinople who have shown in Asia Minor, how impossible it is to move them. Suppose even that the great object of the whole transaction, the cash for the French financiers, does not come in—the awe of Ismail having disappeared—the Powers can only remonstrate with a Treasury which is perfect in the art of apologising for non-payment.. It is said that European agency is to be extensively employed in Egypt, but that is precisely what the Sultan refuses to allow in Asia Minor. It is said the finances of Egypt are to be put straight, but the authority which makes the promise is the Porte, which has repudiated its own Debt, allowed its revenue to be anticipated till money is unprocurable, and will probably die, like the Ancien Regime in France, of want of available cash. The Khedive is to pay bondholders with money which a Sultan who can depose him eagerly wants; to relieve over- burdened peasants, with Constantinople on his shoulders; to fulfil every promise of reform at the bidding of a Government which has never fulfilled one. The immense force of combined Europe has been suddenly exerted to displace a Pasha who was nearly- independent of the Porte, by a Pasha who by the very fact of his predecessor's deposition has been reduced anew to depend-- ence upon the deposing Power.
- There must be some "British interest" at stake in this strange transaction of which the world knows nothing, or- the Government has committed a preposterous folly, at vari- ance with all its own ideas and professions ; and Englishmen will wait with curiosity to see what it is. At present, nothing has been accomplished, except the restoration of the- Sultan's authority over Egypt. Ismail has gone, and Tewfik has come,—that is, a very able Mahommedan Turk, of im- mense experience, has been superseded by a feeble Mahom- medan Turk, of scarcely any experience at all. The experi- ence of the East is, that any ruler who is strong causes less oppression to his people than any ruler who is weak ; that although the tyrant oppresses, it is the Roi fainéant who deso- lates; and although Ismail Pasha was no doubt an extreme- case, ancient experience may prove correct once more. At all events, no guarantee whatever has been taken that it shall not, and no proof exists that the British Government has ever con- sidered what guarantees shall be taken. The system of European. Ministers will scarcely be revived, for that would bring France and England to the verge of a perpetual quarrel, and no other has been so much as thought out, or could be regarded with any certainty as one which would work. So well is this- understood by those who have studied Egypt, that not one of the great Bondholders who have revealed in this transaction the extent of their influence in Europe will keep his bonds for a week after they have momently risen to a paying price. They will be passed to clergymen, country squires, and women ; and then the object of the grand policy which is to regenerate Egypt,. and re-establish British influence, and avert untold calamities,. will have been achieved,—and the grand lesson learned that the way to make a country solvent is to entrust its der- tinies to a power which has already repudiated its own obligations. The country will, of course, await the publication of the papers ; but it will, we fear, find from them that a Conservative Government has carried through a revolution, and abandoned a traditionary policy, merely because it had neither the ingenuity to conciliate France, nor the nerve to stop France from interfering in a place where it is necessary- for England to be paramount.
Previous page
