IRON HAND IN EGYPT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 3, 28 June 1911, Page 4

IRON HAND IN EGYPT.

Silt ELDOX GORST SAYS THERE MUST HE NO WEAKNESS.

STRONG KEnUKE TO THE AGITATORS.

London, May 11

Sir Eldon Gorst, the British Agent in Egypt, has come to the condition that British concessions have been misunderstood as a symptom of weakness, mid. that it is necessary the administration should be conducted with a firmness that will leave no doubt in the minds of the Nationalists of the futility of their agitation.

In his report on the condition of Egypt and the Soudan, issued last night as a White-paper, the British Agent' states that in 1009 and the first half of 1910 there was a steadily increasing tendency on the part of the Legislative Council and the General Assembly to become mere instruments of the Nationalist agitation against the occupation. He continues:

Their Tepeated demands for full constitutional government, the acrimonious attacks on the Government in connection with the. Budget and the Soudan, and the unreasonable hostility and suspicion displayed in the discussion of the Sue* Canal Scheme, were in their essence manifestations of Anglophobia stirred up by the Nationalist party. The niajn idea of that party has wen to bring the occupation to an end by making its task an impossibility, and the chief methods employed consist in undermining the influence of the Anglo-Egyptian official* by constant abuse, insulting all Egyptian* who do not take up an antagonistic attitude to British control, and inciting to disorder whenever an opportunity offers.

In the execution of this programme the General Assembly and Legislative Council lent themselves as auxiliaries, with the result that their newly-acquired importance was used as a weapon against those to whom they owed.

The conclusion to be drawn ia tlmt the policy of ruling this country in cooperation with native Ministers is, at the present time, incompatible with that of encouraging the development of socalled representative institutions. ILL-TIMED CONCESSIONS. _ln my view the principal and sufficient reason has been that, from first to last the adoption of this policy hast been attributed both by the Egyptians and by the local European colonies to weakness, to an attempt to pacify the Nationalist agitation by ill-timed concessions, and to an intentional diminution of British authority. We have to make Egyptians understand that his Majesty's Government do not intend to allow themselves to be hustled into going further or faster in the direction of sei[-government than they consider to be in the interests of the Egyptian people as a whole. Until this elementary lesson has been thoroughly learnt, no proposals for further developing the Legislative Council can 1m usefully entertained.

The experience of we last few year# shows that,the Axiom tlmt British policy will not be moved from the right course by agitation or violence, either from the one side or the .other, is not easily declarations have not proved sufficient for the purpose. Within the feeble measure of my means I have done my best in my recent annual reports to impress upen the members of the Legislative Council the fact that no extension of the functions of the Council is possible until it is clear that such a course can adopted without danger of the wellbeing of the community. UNHEEDING EARS.

This counsel lias so far fallen on unheeding ears. It may be hoped that u better fate is in store for the official declaration made on behalf of his Majesty's Government in the House of Commons in .Tune last, to the effect that there can be no hope of further progress in Egypt until the agitation against the British occupation has ceased. The most convincing argument, and perhaps the only one that will bring the lesson home, will be when the event, has shown that these statements are not mere figments of speech, hut represent the actual lines upon which the attempt to help the Egyptians forward will continue to lie conducted.

We have made an honest attempt to gauge how far the wish for extension of self-government can be met without impairing the standard of administration attained under the present regime, and we have nothing to reproach ourselves with if those who could have helped the attempt to succeed have preferred to take up a hostile attitude.