MONEY FOR EGYPT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 84, 6 October 1938, Page 11

MONEY FOR EGYPT

FOR NEW BARRACKS

AGREEMENT REACHED

An agreement has been initialled at the Foreign Office by Viscount Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of the British Government, and Mohamed Mahmud Pasha, the Egyptian Prime Minister, said the diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post" on August 5. ■

In its important clause, the British Government agrees to bear half the total cost of providing accommodation for British forces maintained in the Suez Canal zone.

This involves provision of barracks for all the British land and air forces, the supply of water ahd electricity, erection of a convalescent camp, creation of amenities for recreations, and building of accommodation for the civilian personnel attached to the British forces.

By the Treaty of Alliance concluded between Britain and Egypt in 1936, Britain's contribution was limited to one-quarter of the cost of accommodation for the land forces. Experience has shown the Egyptian Government that its own estimates of the total expenditure likely to be involved were far too low. It is now thought that the totql cost will not fall short of £12,000,000. In light of the much greater share now to be borne by the British taxpayer, it is understood that British Government officials will take a proportionately larger share in determining the nature of the actual work which it is essential to undertake. TEXTILE MAKERS' COMPLAINTS. On the commercial side the Egyptian Prime Minister has heard from the Lancashire cotton goods mahujfacturers the nature of their com- | plaints against the treatment of their imports into Egypt. He has invited them to send a delegation to Egypt in the autumn. Before leaving for a holiday in I Switzerland, Mohamed Mahmud Pasha expressed his great appreciation of the way he had been received in London and-of the treatment accorded to him and his problems by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. While official circles in Egypt warmly welcome the new agreement, the j Opposition is critical, says a Cairo j message to the same journal. Nahas Pasha, the Wafd—-extreme I Nationalist —leader, declares that the Treaty stipulates that there shall be |no alterations to the original terms ! within ten years without formal negotiations between Britain and a United (Front in Egypt. As the Wafd sis not represented in the present Government it will refuse to accept the agreement.

The Opposition's criticisms are unlikely to affect the agreement, but there is a growing reluctance here to provide the large sums required to implement the military terms of the Treaty. Few Egyptians have yet realised the huge cost of providing and maintaining a modern army.