EGYPT A BRITISH PROVINCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5273, 16 February 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

EGYPT A BRITISH PROVINCE.

(From the Queenslander.)

Under the title of “ Our Route to India,” Mr. Edward Dicey opened in a recent number of the Contemporary Itcmexo a discussion which has been continued in subsequent numbers of that magazine up to the latest which is to baud. The ostensible subject is the maintenance of the Suez Canal as a means of access to be under all circumstances available for England to reach India. It is indicative of tho slight appreciation in which tho Australian colonies are still regarded in political circles in Great Britain, that in the whole series of papers of which Mr. Dicey's was the precursor, the importance of the canal as a route to Australia is never touched upou. Mr. Dicey states the subject matter of the enquiry he undertakes as follows :—“A war has begun which may possibly cud in tho overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. This overthrow would weaken, if not imperil, England's hold on India. How then are the British to protect themselves against the peril involved in the possible success of Russia !” To this question Mr, Dicey addresses himself in detail, and arrives at the conclusion that the only sufficient means would bo a British occupation of Lower Egypt. Neutralisation of tho caual he shows to be fallacious as a remedy for tho evils threatened, because the effect of such an arrangement would bo to close the passage against British wav slaps, transports, and vessels carrying munitions, at tho very time when free use of the canal would be most required. Maritime stations at the entrance of tho canal, he indicates as being equally rain, because, given twenty-four hours’ time, a company of sappers and miners making a dash for auy part of the caual along its whole length could inflict au amount of damage which would render it unnavigable, and could not be repaired for weeks or months. He argues that, for reasons which ho details, England could at this moment do what she could not have done forthe last seventy-five years—that is, take possession of Egypt without war with France. Russia and Germany, Mr, Dicey advances, would readily enough consent, Austria would view tho step with pleasure, wliile Italy, Spain, Portugal, aud Holland are grouped together as scarcely worth considering, and so circumstanced as to be under the necessity of accepting accomplished facts—when accomplished. Tho vital point that in annexing Egypt England would be setting tho example, so bitterly condemned when Russia is in question, of dismembering the Ottoman Empire, does not cscappe Mr. Dicey. Ho proposes to get over the difficulty by making tho affair one of barter, and proposes that Egypt should be purchased from the Porte for a sum arrived at by capitalising tho annual tribute paid by the Khedive—who is to be retained on pension like an Indian rajali—to tho Sultan. Mr. Dicey dwells with mercantile complacency upon the probability that at the present time the Porte, being in desperate straits for money to maintain its defensive war, would jump at an offer which, under different circumstances, it would refuse to entertain. This appears to us to be an argument somewhat redolent of “ a nation of shopkeepers,” but wo do not propose to assume the office of critic to Mr. Dicey, especially aa his scheme undergoes rigid scrutiny at far more competent hands. The effect of Mr. Dicey’s paper was to bring down upon him all the literary thunders of Mr. Gladstone’s pamphleted indignation, and accordingly, in a later number of tho Nineteenth Century, we find not only a further development of Mr. Dicey’s scheme in an additional paper by himself, but a fierce onslaught aud remon-trauco over tho signature of tho exPremier of England. In “Aggression in Egypt and Freedom in the East,” which is the title of Air. Gladstone’s bolt, that gentleman has produced a vast deal more of thunder than of lightning. The writer appears to be a groat deal too angry to bo logical, and like the greater Ajax in the field, ho is not content to hurl a massy spear at the antagonist whose challenge has drawn him forth, bul flings about unexpected shafts at every opponent who comas within his range of vision. Russophobists, conservative statesmen, the “British interests” theory, Russian atrocity mongers, all feel the force of Ills arm. At tile same time it’would not be Ajax did the foe of the hour escape without a dire stroke on the joints of his harness. Mr. Gladstone plants his spear in Mr. Dicey with the accuracy of a warrior anatomist. In other words, he exposes several important fallacies in tho detail of the first essay. He enquires what sort of leviathan army England is to bo expected to maintain to guard the whole course of a caual which Mr. Dicey admits may at any point be in twentyfour hours rendered useless by a corporal's squad of sappers and miners on a raid. Mr. Gladstone angrily deprecates scares. The grisly phantom, he says, rises from the deep, now a little nearer, now a Uttle further off. In 1859 aud the following year it was from France. About 18(52 lie migrated to the American shore, aud glared at us from that horizon. In ] 870 lie recrossed the Atlantic, aud inspired tile notorious “ Battle of Dorking,” and he now wears a Russian dress. But in the same breath that Mr. Gladstone ridicules tho nervous tendency of the British nation, he with supreme inconsistency ministers to it and confesses that ho shares it. There is one subject, he remarks, “ which fills him with alarm.” This is the fewness of our men, which lie adduces as a reason for circumscribing British territorial acquisitions, and even for contracting them. The manner in which the ex-Premier casts about him for arguments to oppose to Mr. Dicey's propositions may be understood from the fact that he actually makes light of the possible closure of the canal, and refers triumphantly to the route round the Cape of Good Hope, as something actually left out of sight by.the essayist. Again, he points out, as an argument fatal to the views he combats, that the first British site in Egypt will be the almost certain “ egg of a North African Empire,” which will hatch aud develop till we ■finally join! hands across the Equator, with Natal and Gape Town, to say nothing of the Transvaal and the Orange River on tho south, or of Abyssinia or Zanzibar, to be swallowed by way of viaticum on our journey. With better effect Mr. Gladstone combats the idea that England could take possession of Egypt without offending the susceptibilities of France. To this ho records an emphatic dissent, and announces his belief that the day which witnesses such occupation will bid a long farewell to all cordiality between England aud Franco. Mr. Gladstone’s paper is diffuse and not convincing, but Air. Dicoy’s rejoinder, which appears in the September number of the Nineteenth Century, is chargeable with the same weaknesses, and adds nothing to the advantage which we conceive to have rested with him up to that point. A fresh ally, however, in this latest number appears upon the field to range himself beside Mr. Gladstone, aud in “ Germany and Egypt,” by Baron von Bunsen, *a review of the case from a German point of view, Mr. Dicey’s theories are, to our view, almost demolished.

After a disclaimer of writing with the authority of official utterance, Baron Bunsen agrees at once with Mr. Dicey that Germany would not hinder British occupation of Egypt. German policy, he states, might have reasons for speeding instead of thwarting such^ a step. But he distinctly assorts Unit when England demands 1 the Sultan’s renunciation of the sovereignty over Dower Egypt, she opens the whole "Eastern Question—she demands far more than Russia that, in fact, whilst the opening of tho Dardanelles, the autonomy of

the Trans-Balkan provinces, the loss even of Armenia, weaken*, hut does not break up the Ottoman Empire, the immediate consequence of an English occupation of Egypt breaks it up. The time would then have inevitably arrived for Italy, for Greece, and for France to set forth tlioir claims. Italy, Baron Bunsen asserts, has scarcely made a secret of her eagerness to extend her dominions either across the Adriatic or across the Mediterranean. Greece regards the Islands, the Epirus, and Thessaly ns imlispeif a’ls for her healthy development. France it would be a mistake to disregard, anti to do so would leave a sting which nothing could remove. France would require Syria as a sop. More than this, the fluctuating force of the objections held in Austria to the increase of tho Slav element would probably bo so decreased in view of such distributions progressing as practically to disappear, and Austria would require Bosnia and Herzegovina for her share. In fine, Baron Bunsen sums up tho whole Eastern Question, once opened up by the action proposed for England by Mr. Diocy, could only be reclosod by a rc-settlemont of the map of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This might be effected without a European war. But England should consider the peril that it might not. Such, in brief, is a resume of one of the most remarkable controversies ever waged in periodical literature. Baron Bunsen regards the principle to have been already virtually settled that England shall be unfettered in the use of the Suez Oanal for peace or war. This is his last sentence, and his weakest. He asks that England shall rest contented with—instead of substantial security—a phrase. It will bo perceived, from perusal of the above review of the arguments for and against the talked-of annexation, that tho course is by no means so clear and free from difficulty as would appear at a first consideration. The concurrence of German sentiment, as expressed in the journals of that nation, is, read by the light of Baron Bunsen’s essay, robbed of most of its encouraging aspect, and means no more than that Germany is well content that England should take the risk of occasioning an embroglio which would array against her the national sentiment of more than one of the Great Powers, and of which no doubt the German Chancellerie, which keeps a tolerably tight hand on tho Press, are satisfied can be turned to the advantage uf the Teutonic Empire.