SHALL WE DARE?

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1287, 4 May 1878, Page 3

SHALL WE DARE?

[“ World,” March 13.] The state of the Cabinet may still be described as one of perpetual alternation between storm and calm —to-day a unanimity, artificial, indeed, but apparently complete ; to-morrow schisms, dissensions, suppressed splits, and imminent secession. Whether we are to go into Congress at all, and, if so, upon what conditions ; whether all or any of the Russian terms are to be treated as open questions for discussion at the international council-table ; whether wo are to consent to be parties to the debate of principles, or only of the application of principles,—these are all of them points that are now furnishing the material of brisk controversy at the official residence of the Prime Minister in Downing street. But quite the most serious and hotlydebated subject at the present moment is our policy with respect to Egypt. The differences which divide the Cabinet on the solutions suggested of this problem are of increasing gravity, and may this week issue, as they threatened to issue more than once last week, in the necessity of a further reconstruction of the Cabinet. Her Majesty’s Ministers have before them the proverbial three courses, and among Ministers are partisans of each. 1. They may adopt a decided policy, and occupy Egypt itself, temporarily or permanently. 2. They may adopt a moderate policy, and guard the approaches to the Canal by establishing a coaling-station at Cyprus, or some small island in the yEgean. 3. They may, more suo, adhere to a policy of masterly inaction, and do nothing. These views, we say, have, each of them, their advocates in the Cabinet. Chief naturally amongst the do-nothingarians is Lord Derby; but if the Foreign Secretary insists upon a rigid espousal of his ideas as the price of his continued presence in Downing street, it is a price which Lancashire Conservatism may not demand as the guarantee of its fidelity, and which some of Lord Derby’s colleagues may not feel disposed to pay. On the whole, however, it may be wiser to take no measure at all than to take half measures, and we have still to bo convinced that, if we were to establish ourselves at Cyprus or Crete —which, whatever its geographical advantages, is far too large for our purpose —or at Mytilene, we should have secured our road to India at all hazards. The question, therefore, is, Will the Cabinet be able to make up its mind, after whatever negotiations with any other European Powers, to annex the land of the Khedive bodily ? From Lord Salisbury, who has, as indeed had Lord Carnarvon, a decided bias towards a policy of appropriation, no objection need, we think, be apprehended ; and in certain official circles, two or three distinguished names are mentioned as those of possible proconsuls of our new Egyptian dominion. But the step is a bold one,[and should it be taken, its boldness will probably have the effect of changing the composition of the Cabinet. There are other matters than these on which the Cabinet must make up its mind, and on which, therefore, it must incur the risk of disruption. With Russia supreme in the Turkish Straits, and in command, as she virtually will be, of a port on the Egean ; with Greece demanding an extension of her territory and a larger seafront northwards; with Italy occasioning much concern to Austria, and ready to pounce upon Albania and Dalmatia, with a view to establishing herself more completely on the Adriatic and the lonian Sea, can any reasonable man suppose that England should rest content with Gibraltar and Malta, if she intends to retain her supremacy in the Mediterranean and her power over the only available road to her Indian Empire ? If the Cabinet, as the Cabinet now is, can come to an agreement on all these matters, it will prove that its capacities for vigorous and united actions have in the past been lamentably misunderstood.