ONE TO MANY FOR THEM.

Kumara Times, Issue 539, 19 June 1878, Page 2

ONE TO MANY FOR THEM.

Edwar/i Dicey, in the current number ofth/; " Nineteenth Century," argues that wnenever, whether by Congress or otherwise, the Continental Powers com.e to deal, as they must at no distant period, with the possesion of Egypt, they ought to fiud the British flagstaff already planted on the soil. He relates a fresh anecdote, as an illustration ( of | the kind of British pluck which is needed at the present time. A score ■ of years ago a French fleet arrived: suddenly at Aden on an unknown errand. The officers were invited to dine with the Governor of the settlement, and in the course of the banquet the commander of the French squadron : casually informed his host that at day- • , ! break he was to sail for Perim, nnder secret orders, to. occupy in the name of France the island rock which 1 commands the entrance of the. Red Sea. Tho<e were the days when telegraph L . wires had not yet spanned the world; and when British Officials were not afraid to act on their own responsibility. The Governor of Aden drank success / to the Fren<:h expedition, bat before his guests had quitted the table a dispatch boat had stolen'out of the harbor, and ; when the French, sqnadron t reached Perim a few hours later, they: found the Union Jack living over the rock and gnarded by an.Brtglish sgnpinel. {They had come too late; and the command of the Red Se.y alone an,d ; uadiauatwd, was secured to England.