A LEADER PASSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1928, Page 7

A LEADER PASSES.

SARWAT PASHA DEAD. Egyptian Statesman And Former Premier. DISTINGUISHED CAREER. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (Received 9.30 a.m.) PARIS, September 23. The death is announced of Sarwat Pasha, ex-Premier of Egypt. EGYPT MOURNS. LOSS OF GREAT STATESMAN. (“Times” Cables.) (Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, September 23. The Alexandria correspondent of the “Times” states that posterity will accord Sarwat Pasha the first place among Egypt’s post-war history. It owes to him entirely its present political status and constitutional regime. Bgypt mourns him not only as the winner of great concessions but as the single Egyptian on whom its hopes in the future reposed. The body will receive a State funeral.

While his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father, each in turn, held posts of increasing importance in the service of the Egyptian Government, Sarwat

Pasha, who, when Prime Minister, visited London with King Fuad in connection with an Anglo - Egyptian Treaty, has outshone them all in eminence. A barrister by profession, he practised chiefly for the Government before he was raised to the Bench,

after which he was sent as Governor of the Province of Assiout for a year,

when he was recalled to act as AttorneyGeneral, an office he held for five years. In 1913 Sarwat Pasha became Minister of Justice, and held the portfolio until 1918. After being a member of Adly Yeghen Pasha’s Cabinet in 1921, Sarwat Pasha became Prime Minister in 1922, and carried out the negotiations with Great Britain, which resulted in obtaining the Declaration of Independence of Egypt on February 28, 1922. At this time, in addition to being Prime Minister, Sarwat Pasha was Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior, and his Cabinet prepared the present Constitution which his country enjoys. At the end of 1922 Sarwat Pasha resigned, and refused to return to politics until 1926, when he accepted the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in the Coalition Ministry of Adly Yeghen Pasha. On the latter’s resignation Sarwat Pasha succeeded him as Prime Minister at the end of May, 1927. On March 6, when the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was rejected by Egypt, Sarwat Pasha resigned, ostensibly for health reasons.