THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1909. THE RIOTING AT CAIRO.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3163, 14 April 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1909. THE RIOTING AT CAIRO.

If Egypt has not actually been infected by India with the troublesome disorder of acute nationalism, she has at any rate developed the same disease, and the recent symptoms of rioting and seditious oratory in the streets of Caiio are hardly less significant than the ever-multi-plying evidences of unrest in India. There can be no temporising by the Government of either country with the danger, for the issues at stake are too vast to he trifled with. When terribly severt punishment was meted out a few years ago to the authors of the Denshawi outrage, some of whom were hanged, while others were publicly flogged for participating in an attack upon certain British officers, Sir Edward Grey, in defending the action of the Khedive's Government, declared frton his place in the House of Commons that it was necessary to make a severe example on account of the dangerous condition of feeling among the peoples of North Africa. The Foreign Secretary's warning was so impressive that the party criticism which had been launched against the action of the Government's representative in Egypt was virtually withdrawn. Of late the Egyptian nationalists have, been far less aggressive than their colleagues and sympathisers in India, possibly owing to the death of their leader, Mustapha Pasha Kamel, by far the most able as well as the mos resolute and pugnacious member of the party. But the utterances of the vernacular press in Egypt, like those of the vernacular press in India, became so inflammatory that Sir Eldon Gorst, Lord Crom Q .r's successor, in his advice to the Khedive, had to take the same line as Lord Minto in India. Repressive press legislation has recently been introduced in both countries, and the Government has assumed power in Egypt as well as in India k> summarily silence the vernacular organ that clamours for the overthrow of British administration. "Hie riots in Cairo appear to have beea decidedly ominous. Otherwise it is hardly likely that the entire British garrison would have been placed under arms, and that the. troops would have been supplied with ball cartridge. The attitude of the Egyptian troops in the event of a great popular rising is a mat-

ter that can only be inferred, but there is no reason to suppose that thev would be disloyal to the Khedive's Government that practically carries out the policy of Great Britain, which occupies the country and keeps a garrison of 5,000 British troops in Egypt to ensure ihe maintenance of order. It should not be difficult to suppress a popular rising engineered by the nationalist leaders, but an unpleasant feature of ation is that a rising in Egypt would certainly make itself felt in India, and would inevitably lead to fresh outbursts among the disaffected people in .that country. Another point to be borne in mind is that insurrections either in Egypt or in India are not always to be attributed solely to local causes. To foment trouble in Egypt and India by means of special emissaries would, admittedly, be-one of the first measures to be adopted by a Power bent on engaging in a conflict with Great Britain.