EGYPT.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 May 1925, Page 4

EGYPT.

ADDRESS BY MAJOR GENERA! SIR REG IN'A ED HOSKINS.

I vi'i v iiiik Ii appreciate the honor ol being linked to speak to tlie Hritisli ( haii! lit*l* ol Commerce of New Vm'k. I have met many who are fond nf Egypt, as | am, lull who cannot describe wliat its fascination is. 1 am afraid I cannot cither. I only know that of all the countries I have visited 1 would rather pack mv Into to-morrow and mi there than auvwhere else. I don t know whether it is the climate or the coloring that is tliere. or the people who are some Egyptian and some very cosmopolitan, or the wonderful Nile valley with its greens and I dues and its prodilctivily. I don’t really know which of these things it is. None of them, I think, because now as i look hack T I’aiicv I see most clearly the days I have spent in the desert, and on either side of the Nile valley tliere is nothing hut desert. The desert is the one place I know ini God’s earth where you have silence and quiet. There is a magic a hunt the desert. If it once gets hold of yon. it has got you. \\ hen yon lie on wmr hack at night the sky is the bluest I know. It seems to lie quite low down and you seem to he almost

able to pick the stars, they are so cln.-e. Then there are the Arabs ol the Desert—awful scoundrels we know, but the most delightful people. So I really don't know how i can tell you mill'll about the laseinatioii of I'lgvpt. except that if you go there am! it nine gets hold ol you. volt go bulk. To air,Tody who has not been ihoie I say. trv it. lint it is a sail thing that that country iust at present, although it is in the midst ol great prosperity, it should he all upset ami in a state ol discontent.

The people of Kgvpt—and I think the Consul General will hear me out when T say that practically " the Egyptians” means "the Fellaheen.” the peasantry nl Egypt. To aiivhodv who has lived tliere long, that is what lie means by the Egyptians. Egypt for the Egyptians means Egpyt. for those people and it is for them that Great Britain has really tried to work while she has liven there.

I n Cairo and Alexandria you will see people of every nut iolialit v. Von will find in the higher positions Turks, very capable men; you will lind Armenians; you will find above all Greeks. Italians and French, especially in the better commercial oositious and in the professions. lint von won't lind it great number of Britishers there In Alexandria there are more Greeks than in Cairo, and so you have to get clearly in your mind that both Alexandria and Cairo are cosmopolitan cities and although you may go there and live for months you won’t come away knowing much about Egypt.

The prosperity which lots been brought ;il)out tlui’i ii.<£ the hist -H yea is is largely agricultural. The trade dovelopmenl of Kgypt industrially is not very great, hut agriculturally is enormous ami will lie greater in the littniv.

I believe that life cotton crop sold in for something like .10 times ilia price that it sold in IHRI. That must upset a country, ami one of the results was that land owners naturally wanted to pill as much cotton down as they could. And so there was not enough wheat for the Fellaheen, the peasants, wlio had to buy imported wheat. In a country like that, with the Delta of the Nile probably the most fertile tract of land in the world, this seems extraordinary. The price of everything has gone up. It is true that the army had spoil L a good deal of money ill the country during the war, so no doubt, lie was a little Better to that extent, but lie fell on bad times and he had then to thank i.nrd Kitchener who two veals before the war saw that a most important law was enacted—that no balding of A acres or less should he taken for debt. Before, when the Fellaheen had got into trouble, money lenders tame around him like bees, got him into their grin and of course took his hind. That luckily stopped ami I hope

stopped forever. This agriruitliral prosperity i.-, primarily due ill the richness of tile I't-rlil-izinjr qualities uf tin- Nile yiin« over I lio land, hut tho < 1 i(lion Itvis to get t lio Nil. l mcr it. Th«' barrage :il Cairo, the ' id haiTii'.'i'. was luiill hv the French, lull, when iic pot tlieiv in 'S2 \vu I'liunil it was quit'..' useless lor tho purpose for which it luul hceu luiill. so allbougb Lhi' t <mu Lrv was up to its ears in debt, I.onl Cromer made the masterly move oi borrowing a million pounds and puttill'.'; i( inlo that dam. In a lew years British engineers had made that dam Work as it was meant tu work, very greatly to the prosperity of Egypt and the innreaxo of the lieveniie. 'I lie next move was to huihl the Assn; m Dam, tho greatest (lain of its kind I believe there is. That was luiill hv British capital and British engineers. It prmiuced an enormous increase in the iiumher of aeres that (oiilil he put Tinder cultivation in Egypt. At I lie present moment Egypt is facing the building of a dam. up the While Nile heyoml Khartoum at a plate called Jeh'el Aulia. They started on it, hut for Ihe time being | fancy not in in ii work is being doen, hut ii (ertainly will he continued, because it as oome to hold hack probably twice as in ni'h tv a ter as the Assault) Dam docs. It will enable Egypt to pul: under cttltitation about two million aeres that an uncoil i\ a led, and about ini' milium aeres will be made into "perrounial irrigation,’ which now only yets "linen irrigation." that is. one sweep of wafer during the whole year, only one cron instead of about .j which they will pet,. Si you see there is going to lie a tremendous Agricultural (letelopment which people should look out for.

In the Sudan beginnings are lieinp made up the Blue Nile, which is the branch that comes from the highlands of Abyssinia, about lot) miles up, near Sennaar. at a place called Makivar they arc completing tin's year a dam called the Mnkwar Dam which will raise the river about TO lect. ! don't know how many miles the reservoir is long, hut I think about TO. and from that will run a big’canal right across what is called Gczein. That >-. the area of land between the Niles. From that will run subsidiary canals which will put the whole of the Giv.era under irrigation from the Blue Nile water. That will put under cultivation very soon, I suppose next year, three bundled thousand acres and in time to come there will be a great deal more, but of these three hundred thousand at res one hundred thousand only will he allowed to he under cotton, one hundred thousand will he obliged to lie fallow and one under other crops. Kaeh year these areas will be taken in rotation.

This has produced what. 1 think, is tho most interesting development anywhere in Alriea. that is a co-partner-ship. n profit sharing business between the government, the nipitalists and the cultivate)' or owner of the land. Thirteen million prill nils was borrowed bv the government. The Syndicate lias to build the .subsidiary canals, has to Inutile cotton at world prices when it is grown, to supervise the growing oi it. to gin it, to market it, and the government sees that the owner of the land, the grower, cannot have his land alienated from him. The Government is to get 3T per cent, the grower is to get 40 per cent, the Syndicate to get ;V> j per cent. That .seems to me to be, on the face of it. the finest progressive administrative effort that f have heard of anywhere in Africa, and it makes for • the prosperity of the natives of the Sudan. Our Government in the Sudan has for its prime object the well being

of the natives, whether Arab or Sudanese. That idea can he developed in the Sudan very largely. There are great tracts of country there, which are fertile rainlauds, not necessarily dependent on the Nile, but there are a great many parts that can be used under Nile water with schemes of that kind. When you get into the southern part of the Sudan you will find that you arc in a part of the Equatorial, heavy, torrential rainland, with the soil very rid,, which does not depend on the Nile, through which probably the Nile will he piloted carefully and canalized so as to get as much water as possible for Egypt. In those equatorial latitudes, the natives are pagan Sudanese, they are very backward and le.zy but above all the difficulty is one of communications. So far as the southern Sudanese develop-

ment goes 1 think we have still a long way to go, but we must keep it in our minds because some day it is going to do a great deal in producing our ordinary equatorial products. '| expect there are very few people in this mom. who know that the first man to get permission to grow cotton in the Sudan, the first man to gel any land concession of any kind in the Sudan wa> the distinguished American, Mr heigh Hunt, a very able man. of very character. The Sudan t- entirely open to development by anybody who has got a good proposition. I hat m wluiMt comes to. But his proposition must square with the main cuiisidcra- ! Mi,ii. the well being of the native. I Tobacco is a thing that you hear ol !as being a great Egyptian product. 1 daresay most of you know it is not *>vptian at all. There is not any tol.grown in Egypt; it is all import- ' cd, hut handled there, and the result is ' a very large industry, which is mostly in the hands of Greeks and Armenians. The main development that we can see in front of us is cotton, and evei\ community, especially one such as Hiis, 1 has got to take notice of that. 'I he I cotton bought in Egypt, and in tne Sudan is, I believe, not entirely but very

largely the long staple There is prosperity for Egypt there and in the Sudan and although people will sav that it will upset other people s cotton, I am sure it is lor the good ol the world that more and more cotton i should he produced, and tlm price he lowered hut that is only my opinion, r am not a, business man. I am not Imre to say much about politics, hut I do think that every Britisher ought to know why it is that Great Britain, when she gave independence to Egypt, made certain reservations. I have not been to England reim.itlv and I have not been to I'lgvpt recently. I only read these things in the. paper and by the light of my own experience, I try to understand them. The reservations, that were made were sine qua non almost. They were made in such a way that the status quo had to remain until •om.e arrangement had been made, as between Great Britain and I\Ltynt, <-ti those lour reservations. The Egyptians, I must say. have really not shown any very negotiatory spirit, no spirit of statesmanship in dealing with those four matters. But now has come into power in Egypt a coalition government for which the future does not hold a verv bright prospect. The

/aghloulitcs. the opposition, have got practically as many votes as the antiZaghloulists. so I doubt if it will last long as a coalition. But it must face these lour points, it seems to me. The lirst one is what is known as our Imperial communications. That was not quite the wording Imt that was what it meant ; and we reserve to ourselves (ertain rights to safeguard those. If you remember. uheli We twill into Egvul it was because there was such a state ol disorder, and ol rebellion, that the quiet which was nece. - irv on our main communieatimis was being disturbed, so we were forced to intervene. Gentlemen, geographically Egypt is a principal junction on on ■ of li e mam highways ol the world, and anyone who uses that highway desires to so" that there is good order and that there is no (haute of disturbance. When we went there v.e straightened tilings out and we stayed (■a because we tried to reform the country. If v.e laid not done that 1 imagine v.e ((.mid have gone iitvav again as we li '.till and tried to do more than olu e. What we say is this; this highroad is mi important that wo are not going to inn any risks ol' tliere being a row on it. i f Egypt had been in the middle of Africa and had had a row. nobody would have cared twopence one wav or the other, Imt having regard to where she is, it is to our advantage and to : the advantage of the world that she should he peaceful and prosperous ; and tnil.il we see that she is going to he

peaceful we cannot divorce ourselves from tlm responsibility we have assumed of looking after the traffic tit. those crossroads. If, some day, there is an international policeman good enough, well-trained enough, in whom we have sufficient laitli. to whom we can liaiiil over these duties, perhaps we will, Imt I am sttro we will not until then. Tho second reservation we made was saleguariling Egynl against outside aggression. | suppose there is no doubt

that our being in Egypt and having been there in the past has prevented ether people from going there, and I believe to-day that Egypt owes her independence lo the fact that wo have boon there for the last forty years. It others had gone there f fancy her independence would have been a thing of the past. Ihe (act ol our being there.

Great Britain having; her troops there, has kept away anybody who wanted to meddle with her; just as the fact of British troops being on the frontier in India has kept away Mid-Asiatic hordes that always have boon the ter-j ror of India. So we say if anybody has to guard Egypt from outside aggression, we will he the Power to do it. In my own experience I have seen! this put to the lest twice, not count-! ing keeping the Dervishes from, overrunning her. When wo moved from | Khartoum up the Nile we found entrenched in a fort on a mud flat, in a. village on tho side of the Nile, a small 1‘ renrh hove of Senegalese under four!

french officers of which .Major Marc-h----and was in command. Tie had been sent there by his government. He was entrenched there because all the Dervishes who undoubtedly would have prevented his being entrenched there had been drawn to oppose us and completely wiped out at Omdurman. We sent word hack and Lord Kitchener came on <he was General Kitchener then) ; lie asked -Man-hand if he would come aboard his gunboat and discuss the matter with him. Marc-hand came and Lord Kitchener said. ■■ You can’t possibly stay there; not that we want to use any force, lint vim really have no right there. This country, although not entirely occupied by us. has just been conquered by us ami wo must askyon to move out. We will take you to Cairo or wherever you want to go." .Man-band said. "No: I am sent here] by my government, and 1 stay here.” ] So f.ord Kitchener said. "Then have! a whisky and soda." So they had aj whisky and soda and that was ali right. ! Kitchener said to hint. "If you write, out the cable you want to send to your, government explaining The situation.; put it into code : 1 will take it with me j and send it off front Khartoum." 1 W hieh he did. He sent it off and he !

himself went to London and there lie found the governments quarrelling over the situation which he explained to them, and instead of Paris going to London and having a whisky and soda, unfortunately they were falling out over this business. It was not until

the French quite clearly saw that wo were prepared to mobilize our navy that they gave in. Well. Mart-hand came away, went through Souakim. and went home. For Marchnnd we had the greatest admiration and for his men we had nothing but the warmest friendship. He had done a very line tiling. It was only that his Government had let him in and asked him to do a job which it should not have asked him to do. But the salient point is this: we were prepared to go to war with I'ranee for the head waters of the Nile, for Egypt. Then in lhOtj I was wandering about with one Arab in the Sinai desert. As a matter of fact, 1 was trying to puzzle out the wanderings of the Children of Israel, which may seem a curious tiling to do, hut it is a tiling ol engrossing interest, [’crimps that will he another story, hut anyhow I was hoping to get

a look at water near the Iroutier. oil our side of the frontiei*, to shoot some sand grouse which I knew flighted there during the morning flight. And as I get on a hill and could see the place. I saw a Turkish detachment camped here. I though it only polite to go up to the commander and say " How do you do,” so I went up and when I got off my camel and approached his tent 1m took me prisoner. I said to him. "This won I. do: v. e are not at war; what is the matter’r What, are vm getting excited about r" From what he -aid I gathered there ins some squabble over the Iroutier. lie had only one man who could talk Arabic ami he kept on sending him awnv so that u took a very long time before we could make one another un-der-land. I tried to make him see the seriousness ol the situation. Eveutir.illv lie seemed to tumble to it and got a little bit anxious toward altcrnmoll. I eventually got him to take his e\cuing meal with his interpreter at a canyi which I proposed to pitch, which in realilv was no camp, just my blanket- about two miles away. He came along and we had some sardines; I got mv gun hack and he went home. When I got hat k to Egypt I discovered there ■ i • I ..11 1

luui liven mi incident which was called the '• Aknbii incident,” and the Turks, 'instigated hy the Germans, had pushed over the Iroutier and were claiming a frontier almost up to the (anal. While talking to my friend the Turk 1 discovered that his headquarters had lent ;il Uin-.Nada, which is the old I’eer-Sheha of the Bible, ami that two days before there had been two senior German staff ollieers there. I here is no question that, they were preparing their plans for the Groat War at that time. Then I heard from l.ord Cromer that this matter had been quite an international incident and the Turks had not been prepared to delimitate the Ironticr until we sent them, a hot note and the Mediterranean Fleet had moved toward Constantinople. There again we 1 a,| been prepared to go to war with Turkey for the rights and the frontiers of Egypt. Those incidents may happen again. No matter what international committees may try to decide these tilings, we have not. got to the point where we can rely on any such organisation. We have to look after Egypt as regards aggression Iron 1 the outside it anybody has to.

Another of the reservations we made was the rights and property ol ioreigners inside Egypt. That is a diflieult thing tor people to understand, I imagine. unle-s they know what ‘‘capitulations ” means. Capitlations mean clauses in certain treaties that have keen made bv < hristiau (ounln"s with the Turks, which safeguard them inun the laws of the Ottoman Empire. In

practice it means that, no loreigner ,-au !,e tried excepting hy hi- nun ('miMtl and no Egyptian police <e.ii fitter anv hoti-e i r building belonging to a foreigner unless he has a ((insular representative with him. We will Keep that arrangement going until we can lind some modus vivendi, some judicial system which will he sat i.sho lory to .Egypt. I fancy the ones that wo have |.ir ipn.-e.l would tie sati.-taetory to the nation ol Euro:).' hut they have not been lotiml satisfactory. I understand.

to the Egyptian Government, .■something will lerlainly have to he done along the lines we have suggested, he-(:m-'o I am quite sure that however well Eg.vpL may he going to govern herself, the Governments of Egypt are not yet prepared to rely implicitly on her good government.

The last reservation we made votin' status of the Sudan. We rule the Sudan equally with Egypt by treaty whi< It was made with Egypt, after the battle of Khartoum. There is not the least doubt about it that Egypt has just its much light there as we have. We have had to run it because in that treaty we had the provision of the Governor-General and underneath the Governor-General have been British Governors for all the provinces. But we have found that since the war the extreme nationalists of Egypt had a

system of intrigue with the junior Egyptian officials of the Sudan and that these latter had been plotting against our authority in the Sudan and trying lo pul the black troops against, us. Therefore, after the GovernorGeneral was assassinated, we had to nip tin- thing in the hud, so it was necessary to ask the Egyptian Government lo withdraw the purely Egyptian units because we could not rely on them. All that has produced, for the moment, a most dilfieult situation. Nubodv :n authority in Egypt pretends that if Egypt will come along and pull tier weight in the government of the •Sudan and play the game, that she should not come and also help in tlie control of the waterways of the Nile. It is clear that yon cannot have two nations trying to rule together, when one of the two is trying to foment rebellion against the other. I feel sure that in the course of time this will in-

put right. The prosperity of the Sudan has been I produced to a certain extent hv the Governor-General and Lord Cromer, j who has been really at the wheel, hut I very largely by the young British civil servants, in whatever position they have been. First of all. they were British nlficcrs. Lord Cromer then said, "I can find no hotter administrator lor a country of this kind than tho young British officer that ! have got lo do it now. But the War Office takes them away so last that I shall have to put in a Civil Service of my own.” So he went to Oxford and Cambridge and saw the leaders of these universities and put it to thorn that he had a good thing to offer and wanted good men for it.

I I liey said. "Oh. yes; we have pro- . dme(| them for the Indian service; wo , I can do that unite well." | When ho got to l.ondon he was a I little hit-anxious and said. "I wonder lif these fellows understand what I i want " So when he met one of tho I leaders of Oxford Eniversity in London ! and said, "I suppose we are in accord j over this business; you understand ! what I want, don't your" ! "Oh. yes." | Lord Cnimer said, "I will lie satisi. tied with lit' , brains is you will promI Iso me THE',, guts." That, gentlemen, {is the ci.-t of that class of adminis--1 irarion and it is what will yet pull it ' along, i li.-licve. i ADDRESS BY .MR RAMSES ] CHAFFEY. i (Egyptian Consul for INS.) General Hoskins started his very interesting address bv carrying us back to Egypt and by unveiling to us some of the natural beauties of that fascinating country. It is interesting to notice that for the first time in the history of the United States representatives from such an old country as

Egypt have I icon duly accredited. For tl*o first time both diplomatic and consular representations have been established in this country. Personally, 1 only arrived in March of last year and from that time until this morning my life in this country has been a succession of interesting experiences. because I found from the very first day I started my duties as I do find it at this moment, what a wonderful opportunity was in store for me to carry the name of Egypt into so many directions. to say somethin”: about our people's, our institutions; not necessarily about our past, because you know that side- already, hut about our present and the possibilities of our future, which I do not, hesitate to say are very encouraging and promising. There has been a lot ol anxiety lately about our political condition. May I just make a short statement on that point. Although we can boast of a big past, we are to-day a small nation. We have entered a new phase in our political existence. When (beat liritaiu declared Egypt an independent sovereign stale, it uas not the result of a rash palmy ; it was not the outcome of an 1111-thoug|ft-of plan; hut it was the gesture of a government knowing very well w hat it was doing. The forty years o! British control over the Egyptian destinies have produced wonderful results. I here is not a broad-thinking Egyptian 10-day: there is not a real 'Egyptian patriot who will not always and everywhere proclaim to the world his gratitude for what (treat liritaiu has done to promote the conditions of all Egyptians, whether they he foreigners i-.-.iahlisheil in ihal lounirv m whether they he licri'i ,u t!:.- h.nd.

Gcneial Hoskins lias dealt to a great extent on the irrigation works that have produced in Egypt a state of fertility never dreamt of before. Very modestly he has not touched on the other big achievements that are due to the intervention, and assistance, of British engineers and of British t hought ; namely, such depart incut s as our Railways, now distributed throughout the country and diffused in all the provinces; such departments as the Bostal administration, the Telegraph and Telephonic departments, the Survey departments and the Customs administration. All these departments and many others i hat do m,i just come to my memory are outstanding results of real genuine and sincere efforts displayed to promote the welfare of our country.

-May I say a word or two about certain achievements in the educational line which have been directly associated with British influence. Eillivn years ago commercial and industrial

education in EgypL were in a slate of infancy. It was my privilege and honor to he working with a man by lint name of Sydney 11. Wells. To-day if bo were alive he would be surprised to see the fruits of his untiring efforts. I hi -, man. as 1 can ee him now. bent over his des|- tv.. |>.o hours in the twen-ty-four. working as hard as he could, cam" to Egypt in the bloom of health, and in the prime of life, with a big thought and a lofty ideal, to promote tin' intellectual standard of the Egyptians. A-. has been explained to you just new. Egypt is primarily an agricultural country and Mr Wells found it Has high time to divert the efforts of the young into more profitable occupations in the commercial and industrial fields. To these two ends, he spent the best lie bad in health. in time, sacrificing his own people, and his own intore-l-. I can see him lunching nilli a eei> of tea ami a lew biscuits hciatlsc time was too precious to lie spent cih iwi-e. To such men as Sydney li. Wells and many others to whom v- c owe a lire l l.llg gratitude, there is not an Egyptian to-dav who would mil Maud and bow at their memory. I want to say a word or two about a man who has been instrumental in bringing about a state of condition in Egypt, "hn-li iroio where we are standing to-day. enables us to look upon the future with optimism and with cheer. I noiilil like to proclaim to your onr euie-ii atioir. respect and gratitude for Marshal Alieiiby. .Not only has ho proved to be ;t master on the battle-

field, but be has shown a great skill in diplomacy. It is to a large extent due to Marsha! Allcnby’s influence that we owe the creation of a state of mind in EgypL v, hich has contributed to the establishment of a feeling o! iriendstnp toward Great Britain and a desire lor co-operation with the British Government. To-day Egypt is an independent country, freshly embarked on an arduous end delicate enterprise. \\ •• have to stumble sometimes in our lives, bn-', then to stand again on our ieet and resume our <cur.se. This is the present j rendition oi Egypt, bet u> face it ; cheerfully. We have had a good many j troubles during the last lour or five j years, hut i assure you that the trnu-j Ides v.e have been through are -so | manv lessons which we shall not forget! and from with h we shall derive the greatest benefit. The results of the present elections are m.t yet guite known. The last returns were that there will he two big parties in the next parliament. I.ct it la so. Wo do not feel sorry that the Government of Egypt i.s not better backed up. I should say this is rather a fortunate feature, because it will mean on the part of the present government a careful tackling of our problems. The present Government o! “Egypt is in the hand* cl members of the oldest families of Egypt who have the he.e of the country at heart, who understand the responsibilities that have fallen upon their shoulders, and who are conscious of the obstacles f.bat thev have before them and will give every hit of energy they have in | : i-, - * . xrove to the world t'liut il« i <-io.!no-ui " in Egynt has not la on misplaced.

It is to Great Britain's int''gn!y. to its glorious traditions, to its records of achievement in Egypt (hat. every one of us to-day wishes to appeal in order to lav the foundation .stones o! a monument of lasting friendship. I.ct me iust end with another word, to which I should like to atlaeli a great

significance, because havine said ail I have said on those who have helped Egypt stand on its feet, I wash to attach a name which will, ill the coming years, prove its power, its importance and it influence - namely that il the pieseut King of Egypt. Earn! i. I -itlk' has I eeo known ol Imp or a 1 opt him. but those who have b on in closest contact '.villi him have found out that Egypt's destinies Pave never been placed in better bands'. H was my privi-

!:■; eto wor!; one year in the private cabinet <■ I' His .Majesty, and I know Inexperience the number of hours that His Majesty the King of Egypt will devote every day to study the problems that involve the progress ol b's people All tlais” who have approached him speak in high terms ol his capabilities and the deep love i!mt lie nourishes foi his subiecls. There is not a im-vemcnt directed towards improving existing conditions whi< h is not in one way of another pal oni/.id by idle. We all fool; plant i. ni r.s the loader ol this now Egypt. B. r anally 1 feel v( "y confident that the entiling years will witness a pi—gross in Egypt that has never been attained before. Let Egypt have a lew years of peace, of real good and productive work, and Egypt will he an Eden on earth.