THE NEW REGIME IN EGYPT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2380, 9 February 1915, Page 6

THE NEW REGIME IN EGYPT

PASSING OF THE TURKISH MAM THE DEPOSED KHEDIVE OFFICIAL STORY OF HIS GUILT The following letter addressed on December 19 last to Hjs Highness Prince Hussein by the Acting High Commissioner in Egypt was recently communicated for publication by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs "Your Highness,—l am instructed by His Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of Stato for Foreign Affairs to bring to the notice of Your Highness the circumstances preceding the outBreak of war between His Britannic Majesty and the Sultan of Turkey, and the changes which that war entails in the status of Egypt. In the Ottoman Cabinet there were two parties. Un one side was a moderate party, mindful of the sympathy extended by Great Britain to every effort towards reform in Turkey, who recognised that in' the war in which His Majesty was already engaged no Turkish interests wore concerned, and welcomed the assurance 01 His Majesty and his Allies that neither in Egypt nor elsewhere would the war bo used as a pretext for any action injurious to Ottoman interests. On the other sido a band of unscrupulous military adventurers looked to find ill a war of aggression waged in concert with His Majesty's enemies the means of retrieving the disasters, _ military- and financial and economic, into_ which they had already plunged- their country. Hoping to the last that wiser counsels might prevail, His Majesty _ and his Allies, in spite of repeated violations ot their rights, abstained from retaliatory action until compelled thereto by the crossing of the Egyptian frontier by armed bands and by the unprovoked attacks on llussian open ports by Turkish naval forces under German officers.

Late Ruler's Cuilt. "His Majesty's Government are in possession of ample evidence that ever since the outbreak of war with Germany His Highness Abhas Hilmi Pasha, lato Khedive of Egypt, has definitely thrown in his lot with His Majesty s enemies. From the facts set out it results that the rights oyer the Egyptian Executive of tho Sult-aii or ot the late Khedive are forfeited, and that nis Majesty's Government have already, through the General Officer Commanding His Majesty's forces in Egypt, accepted exclusive responsibility for the defence of Egypt during the present "it remains to lay down the form of the future government of the freed, as I have■ stated, from all rights of suzerainty or other rights theretofore claimed by the Ottoman Government or the rights thus accruing to Uw Majesty, no less than of those exercised in Egypt during the last thirty years of reform. His Majesty s Government regard themselves as trustees for tho inhabitants of Egypt, and His Majes } Government have decided that Great Britain can best fulfil the icsponsibilir ties she has incurred towards Egypi by the formal declaration of a British Protectorate and by the government of the country under such Protectorate by a Prince of the Khedivial family.

Britain's Responsibility. "In these circumstances I am instructed by His Majesty's Government to inform Your Highness that by. reason of your age and experience you have been chosen as the Prince of th family of Mehemet All most worthy to occudv the Khedivial position with the title arid style of Sultan of Egypt, and in inviting Your Highness to accept the responsibilities of your high office I am to kive you the formal assurance that Great Britain accepts the ponsibility for tho defence of the tern toiies under Your Highness against all aggression, wnencesoever His Majesty's Government authorise .me to declare that after the establishment of the British Protectorate now anreceive the protection of His Majesty s Government. With Ottoman suzerainty there will disappear tho restrictions heretofore placed by the nn ns unon the numbers and orgamsa Hon of Your Highness's army, ana upon the byfour Highness of honorific distinctions.

Gontrol of Foreign Relations. 1 "As regards foreign relations, His Maiesty's Government deem it most consistent with tlie new responsibility assumed by Great Bntain that tie relations between your Highness s Government and the representatives of foreign Powers should be hencefroth conducted through His ss representative m Cairo. His Majesty s Government have repeatedly placed on record tliat the system, of treaties, known as the Capitulations, by which vour Highness's Government is bound, are no longer in harmony with tlio development of the country, but Lam expressly authorised to state that, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government the revision of these treaties may most conveniently bo postponed until the olid of the present year. . . ' "In the field of internal admpistra. tion, lam to remind your rnes that in consonance with the traditions of British policy it has bcen n t , he S' of His Majesty s Government, wtolo worths throngli and in the closest association with the constituted Egyptian ou+Tinrities to secure individual liberty and promote the spread of education and to further the development of the national resources of the country, and, in such measure as the degree of onpublic permit to associate the goj'e™ 6 ". m . "'•? tiif intenfoTof n ffis Majesty's" Governtowards self-government.

Complete Religious Toleration. "The religious convictions of the Egyptian subject will be as scnipulousIv respected as are those of His Macsssown subjects, whatever their 3 Nor need I affirm to your Highfmsfthat hi'Sarins Egypt free from t <hdv of obedicnco to those who W„ usurped political power at Constantinople, His Majesty's Government ' bv no hostility towards + T rn iphate. As the past history shows, indeed, the Joyalty of Mohammedans towards the pffjnhato ig independent of any poliSml bonds betwei.i Egypt and ConW'. 1 The strengthening and — of Mohammedan institutions STfwt is ™ turali ? a the w;, "Majesty's Government take the i LKterest. and in which your Harness'will be specially concerned, 5d to carrying out such, reforms «s • Z considered necessary your HighS nav emmt upon the sympathetic «rf "of His Majesty's Government. to add that His Majesty's Gov„,,t rolv with confidence upon tho PX'Sd sense, and self-restraint S feptLn subjects to facilitate the ?,sl O tl o General Officer Commanding xr vuLtv's forces, who is entrusted with "the maintenance of internal order and with the prevention of the renderi»|r of uid "to the enemy. The New Sultan. Prince Hussein, the new Sultan, is the eldest uncle of the deposed KJicdivc. Hi* iAtV< that Ismail .whoso ox-

travaganco and weakness in dealing with Arabi Pasha brought about British intervention and caused his own fall from the throne. Since tlhe times of the great Mehemet Ali, in the,early nineteenth century, the Khediviate has been hereditary ill his family. Mehemet Ali's eldest son, Ibrahim, who had helped his father to trouble Europe, was Khedive himself for a little while. Ismail was his son, and Tewfik and the new Sultan were his grandsons. Sultan Hussein was born in 1853. Ho is the most able and most popular member of his family, and has long been consistently friendly to Britain. Educated in France, he was in his early youth a friend of Napoleon 111, the Empress Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial. During the reigns of his father, his brother Tewfik, and his nephew, Abbas Hilmi, he has done his country much service as a Minister and as a private person. For many years his main in- : terests have been agricultural. As a large and progressive landowner he has vigorously and effectually encouraged scientific farming. The development-of the cotton crop has beeii largely his work. The High Commissioner. The new High Commissioner of Egypt has had no experience of that country before the present war, but he has at least one marked qualification for the office upon which he now enters. Hardly any living Briton has had equal opportunities of getting to know and understand the Moslem mind. For six years (1905-11) he was in'change of the administration of Beluchistan, and for a long time previously his work was almost entirely confined to the Mohammedan peoples of the Indian north-west frontier, whether as head of the Seistan mission or as the officer responsible for the demarcation of part of the Afghan frontier. Sir Henry M'Mahon is now in his 53rd year, and he may be reckoned one of the_ most thoroughly trained Indian "politicals" of tho day. For twenty-four years he has been in the political department of the Government of India —that is, in the seryico of tho Simla Foreign Office, which is concerned with the Native States and with frontier affairs. Ho was Chief of Staff to the Amir of. Afghanistan when that potentate made-his amusing visit to India in 1907, a visit of which Lord Kitchener, as Anglo-India knows, has not a few diverting memories.