The Sudan and Egypt
The treaty negotiations with Egypt are to all appearance making no headway, and it is a good thing Mr. Bevin is back to handle them in their present difficult phase. The difficulties are not less formid- able in that they are largely unreal. The whole negotiation turns on the discovery of a formula to cover the future of the Sudan, and the trouble is that on this question neither side thinks it can afford to give an inch. The British Government did in fact give several inches when it found itself constrained to acknowledge the sovereignty of King Farouk over the Sudan. That acknowledgment in itself aroused such feeling among The Sudanese, or a large section of them,- that it was thought well for Sir Hubert Huddleston, the Governor, to issue a proclamation assuring the Sudan that its right to ultimate indepen- dence remained and would remain unimpaired. As a result of that, and of a similar assurance which Sir Abdel Rahman el Mahdi Pasha said he had received from Mr. Attlee, the pendulum has swung the other way, and Nokrashy Pasha,, the new Egyptian Prime Minister, has had to thump the Nationalist drum much more loudly than he would naturally be disposed to, declaring that the British conduct of Sudan
• affairs was designed deliberately to incite the Sudan to separate from Egypt. Nokrashy Pasha knows perfecdy well that that is not true. He has always been Anglophile, and there is no doubt that if he and Mt. Bevin were left to settle the Sudan question they could do it in half-an-hour. But Nokrashy Pasha cannot, of course, ignore his own excitable and largely ill-informed public. If he loses their con- fidence it will be given to someone much less dependable than he is. The fact about the Sudan fs that Britain insists that when the time comes, which is not by any means yet, the country must be free to declare for complete independence if it so desires. Egypt does not seriously contest that, but shows itself, ,abnormally sensitive about any premature suggestion-of separation. Hence the present trouble.
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