EGYPT AND THE PROPOSALS FOR EVACUATION.
WE sincerely trust that Lord Salisbury will meet the attempts of the Sultan to begin negotiations in regard to the evacuation of Egypt with a direct and simple negative, and will tell him and Europe that the matter is one which we refuse to discuss. That is, it seems to us, the only safe and the only honourable course which can be pur- sued by our Government. It is the only safe course, because at a moment when all the Powers of the world are waiting on our actions, and trying to discover whether we possess the old fortitude and strength, the mens !qua anluis which gave us our position in the world, it is essential to show that we will never discuss any gnat question under ihrfats, be the consequences what they may. It is the only honourable policy, because our Government knows, and the country knows, that nothing can possibly come of .negotiations to evacuate Egypt. Unless our Government were to betray its trust, which most certainly it is not going to do, it cannot agree to evacuation. To enter upon negotiations whose sole object would be evacuation, would herefore be to convey a false impression. Our fault all through in regard to Egypt has been the encouraging ef false hopes, and the starting of schemes of which there was never any real prospect of fulfilment. We did this honestly, no doubt ; but it was a capital mistake in policy, and we must do anything rather than commit it again. While we were still inexperienced as regards the conditions of Egyptian rule, and while we still cherished the belief that Egypt might some day be able to stand alone, we were excuseable for having talked about evacuation, and for Laving been willing to consider and discuss the possibility hf such an event. Now no such excuse is possible. We know clearly that we cannot evacuate Egypt without bringing ruin on the country and destroying all our work, end this the people of England will not permit. Hence to enter upon negotiations now would be almost an act of lad faith. It would be to convey an impression that we might do what we have made up our minds that we cannot. Now that the country has realised that withdrawal from Vie Nile Valley Las become an impossibility, it is abso- lutely necessary to stop all the talk about this or that condition which would make evacuation acceptable. It was honourable enough to enter upon the Drummond Wolff negotiations, because England then honestly be- lieved evacuation attainable, and was anxious to see it urried out. Now that a longer experience of the problem has shown it to be insoluble by evacuation, we have, as we have said, no right to pretend, as entering upon negotia- tions would pretend, that our departure from Egypt is still a possible policy. When once we have come to regard evacuation as no longer practicable, the only straight- forward plan is to refuse to take any action which implies or suggests an opposite decision.
We have assumed that the country has come to regard evacuation as unattainable; but perhaps this view will be challenged, and we shall be told that there are still a large number of people who take the opposite view, and believe that we can and ought to leave the Nile Valley. No doubt this is so ; but we believe, nevertheless, that we are right in holding that "the better opinion," as the lawyers say, is that which we have put forth, and also that this opinion now commands the general approval of the British people. The proposal to evacuate Egypt and to hand over Egypt, either to be sucked dry by the Pashas, or else to be harried and destroyed by the Soudanese Khalifa—these are the inevitable alternatives—would, we believe, raise a storm of indignation in England, and would create a protest that would be irresistible. Still, the view that we ought to evacuate is, we fully admit, held by many able men, and we shall therefore attempt to deal shortly with the main argument on which it rests. Those who want us to leave Egypt, base their demand on the ground that Egypt is a great source of weakness to us, and that in the case of war our presence on the Nile might be enough to turn the scale against us, and lead to our defeat. It might, they argue, be a matter of vital importance for us, as an act of war, to abandon the Mediterranean for a time. But this abandonment could not be carried out if we were in Egypt. We could not leave our troops isolated there; and might, therefore, be forced to light at a strategic disadvantage because of our possession of Egypt. Those who argue thus ignore the realities of the situation. There is no sort of reason—granted that it had become necessary for us to temporarily abandon the Mediterranean —why we should not carry out that abandonment, and yet remain in Egypt. To maintain our position in Malta after we had abandoned the Mediterranean might, indeed, be difficult ; but there would be no such difficulty in regard to the Nile Valley. And for this reason. Egypt is a bind with two faces. It is not merely a Mediterranean State, but has also a water frontier on the Red Sea. Hence Egypt can be held quite as easily from the eastern as fr..= the western side, from the Red Sea and India, as from the Mediterranean and England. Look at the map of Africa, and see how the Nile runs parallel to the Red Sea coast. About three hundred miles up the river is a town called Renneh. Opposite it, on the shore of the Red Sea, is a port called Kosseir. Between these two places, only about one hundred miles apart, runs a famous and most ancient trade-route well supplied with water throughout its course. It is this route from Kenneh to Kosseir which makes Egypt as easily tenable from India as from England. We are not pressing any wild fancy or untried project. A hundred years ago England proved that Egypt could be held from India. The French were in Egypt and we wanted to turn them out. We were doubtful as to our ability to do this from England, and accordingly Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General of India, put six thousand native troops on ship-board, under command of General Baird, landed them at Kosseir, marched them to Kenneh, put them on a Nile flotilla, and floated them down the stream to Cairo, where they arrived without the loss of a man to complete the ruin of the French. They were not, as it happened, wanted to fight, but they had nevertheless done a great service to England. They had proved that Egypt could be held from India. What was easy in the days before steam would be far easier now. Indian troops in steam transports could be at Kosseir in less than a week, and at Kenueh they would find a railway which would take them to Cairo in nine or ten hours. The truth is that the temporary abandonment of the Mediterranean as an act of war is not the least interfered with by our stopping in Egypt. Egypt, resting on India, could shift for itself with perfect ease ; and if we liked, we could safely take away the four thousand white soldiers now there and fill their places with Sikhs. But it may be said, —‘ Directly the French saw that we had abandoned the Mediterranean, they would send sixty thousand men to Egypt and bundle us out neck and crop, capturing our soldiers and seizing our military plant.' They would do nothing of the kind,—unless and until the struggle for the command of the sea had been decided, and decided in their favour. But if they crushed us at sea, everything would be gone, and it would matter very little whether Egypt was or was not thrown in. Let us explain what we mean in greater detail. Till the command of the sea had been decided, France dare not fling sixty thousand men into Egypt, for fear that, if England won the fight at sea, her men would be caught in a trap. In a word, she dare not repeat the mistake of Napoleon. He went to Egypt before the command of the sea had been decided. It was decided against France, and his army had nothing to do but surrender.
Practically, then, the occupation of Egypt does not matter one way or the other, from a military point of view. Egypt is simply one of the stakes in the game, and will be claimed by the victor in a struggle for sea-power. We need not, then, bother our heads about the occupation of Egypt weakening us in the Mediterranean. It does nothing of the kind, and when we are looking at things from the war point of view, remains a side-issue. If we win, we keep it. If we lose, we lose it. The occupation or evacuation of Egypt must depend, therefore, upon other considerations. These considerations are moral and political. To put them quite shortly, they are as follows. We have done a great work in Egypt. We have regulated her finances, and done more than justice to her creditors. We have im- proved the position of the people, and have protected them from grievous wrong and oppression at the hands of their native rulers. Lastly, we have protected, and still protect, them from the invasion of a horde of savages. Nothing but the British military power keeps the Mahdi out of Cairo. Six months after Egypt had passed into the hands of the Egyptians, the movement north would begin at Dongola, and would not stop till every house, shop, and cafe in Cairo and Alexandria had been burnt and pillaged. To with- draw from Egypt means, in fact, to expose the Delta and the Nile to all the horrors that arise when civilised rule gives way to uncivilised. Are we prepared to commit this act of criminal folly ? Most assuredly we are not. We can no more leave Egypt than France can leave Tunis. In either case, the promises to evacuate at a future date were given by men who were ignorant of the necessary results of the occupation of Eastern States by Western Powers, and were incapable of performance. The occupation of an Oriental country is like having a bracelet riveted on your arm. To say you will give it up in twenty years is like promising to slip your hand out in twenty years' time. Depend upon it, the only safe and honourable thing to do in regard to Egypt is to do what we have indicated at the beginning of this article as the true course. Let us say to Turkey, and to the world in general, "We cannot enter upon negotiations in regard to the evacuation of Egypt, for that course supposes the possibility of with- drawal. In reality, no such possibility exists, and now that we realise that fact, we will not pretend to ignore it."
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