ENGLAND READY TO ANNE EGYPT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1143, 6 September 1913, Page 4

ENGLAND READY TO ANNE EGYPT.

BY PEACEFUL CONQUEST.

HAS WRESTED CONTROL OF THE NiLE COUNTRY FROM SULTAN.

Tho report, current a fow montb.s ago, that Groat. Britain was about lo annex Egypt is 'renewed with a particularity which suggest that be*for" long the formalities needed to accomplish this purpose may bo carried out (states the Boston, U.S.A., Transcript). If they are, their performance will murk the end of a farce which Great Britain has played with an imperturbable face for practically thirty years, the facial control of British statesmen has always been noteworthy. They arc artists in diplomacy and will maintain an outward respect for tradition up to file last, moment of their departure from it. In accordance with their practice they have invariably refrained from any action that, looked like disrespect for the tneorotical suzerainty of the Sultan of Turkey in Errypt. for that country is solemnly set down in official literature as “a tributary State” of tho Ottoman Enmpirtn Neil her in form nor in fact is Egypt really one of the Sultan’s tributaries. For the last (piarter of a century a I urkish commissioner has. resided in l'.g\pi as upreseiilaiive of the Sultan, hut he lias lueii under slrict orders not to I'llorlere i„ lice slightest degree .with the lliitisl, administration, and tin* MrilMt :umniii-*tra-(ion iu turn gravely pretends to do all tilings iu tin* mime' of the Miedive. I lie Khi'div (Hits into decrees the memorinda passed it by the Brllisii Resident ConsulGeneral. who is the source <d nil govoruiii" authority. The transition from Egypt, a Turkish tributary Slate, to Egypt, a lormallv catalogued British dependency, uouid not he noticeable by the Egyptian*, who have long been accustomed to see their country ruled by everybody but themselves. Even the Egyptian dynasty, which is contented with tho trappings of authority while its substance is in British hands, descends from the successful Turkish soldier, who proved too strong to he coerced bv tho Sultan. , , In the three decades that England has governed Egypt that country has known "renter progress in all directions ol advancement, greater comfort and greater prosper'd v than it ever knew when the kliedives "ere the actual rulers of the land Nor has the progress been wholly material. Popular . education has been "iven a wonderful impetus* by a judicious combination of British push and native aspirations. Egypt is still a land of the unlettered, but the decrease in illiteracy has kept. pace, step by step, with the growing power of Great Britain. If ho British have not perhaps levelled up. but they have made a beginning toward levelling up. and the confidence they feel that thoir control will be undisturbed is evidenced bv the small physical force on which they velv for support. Tho British troops in number only six thousand, and the Egyptian army, whose higher posts are all - held bv Englishmen, has an actual slren"th of onlv about seventeen thousand. ' Great Britain’s Egyptian record is one that it may well be proud of when tho results attained are examined. Iruo, it is a thinlv veiled conquest, but it is a conquest accompanied by wonderful victories of peace. It may seem at first glance a matter of indifference to Turkey that the British should now carry out a long postponed formality, but the final separation of the slender thread which has bound E'n-pt to Constantinople carries with it tlm snapping of a prestige terribly impaired in consequence of the Balkan War. (Veto has "one. and now it Egypt goes, too, and Turkey is left only a. corner in Europe, tho Young lurks, who rose m dark and evil days to rejuvenate then country, will stand among rums for which Kiev wore not, responsible, exposed to (ho derision of those old lurks who, by then backwardness and their oppressiveness, rcallv sapped the foundations of the Ottoman Empire until its restoration to iis old time vigour was beyond the capability of younger, more enlightened and more energetic men.