EGYPT’S PROGRESS.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20264, 5 August 1937, Page 14

EGYPT’S PROGRESS.

PROGRAMME FOR DEFENCE TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAIN. FINANCE OFFICIAL’S VISIT. The claims of Egypt as a country which travellers from New Zealand and Australia should visit are being advocated by Mr J. I. Craig, Commissioner for Customs and Financial Secretary to the Minister of Finance in the Egyptian Government, who arrived in Dunedin. He is visiting the Dominion on holiday, but is taking the opportunity to study the economic structure of this country and Australia. In an Interview he discussed the programme of defence put into operation by the Egyptian Government, and spoke impressively of the country’s financial position. It had come through the depression years very satisfactorily indeed, he said, and now was in a position to take advantage of the Improving economic position of the world. Mr Craig told an Otago Daily Times reporter that he has came out to Australia and New Zealand on holiday, but mainly for the purpose of studying the economic experiments of these countries. The basic wage and tariffs are subjects which interest him particularly. His trip is not all study, however. For one thing, he has been renewing many friendships made with Australians and New Zealanders in Egypt during the Great War years, and for another he has been pressed Into service as an advocate of Egypt's tourist attractions. The New Zealand Tourist Department arranged a series of addresses to give him the opportunity to impress upon New Zealanders how easy it was to stop on the way to Europe and visit the many interesting memorials of the past in the Nile Valley. The Defenoe of Egypt. “I have found both Australians and New Zealanders extraordinarily Interested in the political situation in Egypt,” Mr Craig said. “Everywhere I have been questioned closely about the recently-concluded treaty between Great Britain and Egypt and about Egyptian trade conditions generally. The Egyptian Government is now engaged in carrying out the military requirements of the treaty—building new barracks near Ismailia on the Suez Canal, constructing new aerodromes, and making a network of strategic roads across the country, tl is also increasing the strength of its army with particular attention to the air force, which is the type of armed body*best adapted to the defence of a country like Egypt, with its enormous sea coast and long land frontiers.”

According to the terms of the treaty. Great, Britain had guaranteed Egypt against foreign aggression. “Of course,” Mr Craig went on, “it is to the Royal Navy, backed as it was last year by units from the Royal Australian Navy, that Egypt looks to provide the first line of defence. I think this fact is now being fully realised by the Egyptians themselves. They are seeing that Great Britain, with the resources of the Empire behind her, gives the best guaraniee of security for the development of their country, I personally would like to see an even closer bond of union between the Empire and Egypt openly acknowledged. This treaty demonstrates an identity of political aims, and economic interests also are. fundamentally the same. I hope to see that take expression in some concrete form. There should be a closer commercial bond.” Finance being the root of good administration, it was interesting to hear from Mr Craig that the public finances of Egypt, are on a very sound basis. He said that for the last 15 years, with only two exceptions, due to abnormal circumstances, the public accounts have been closed with a surplus, with the result that a considerable reserve fund had now been accumulated. “In addition to that,” he continued, “productive public works, such as reservoirs to store more water and weirs to raise it on to the land, are being built out. of income. Little Unemployment. “There is a little, but not much, unemployment in Egypt, and it is being tackled by the Government with advice from the Labour Bureau at Geneva. But Egypt is still chiefly an agricultural country, self-sufficient so far as food is concerned, and it has not suffered as much from unemployment as agricultural countries have. No doubt the average Egyption income is very low and, thanks to a genial climate, clothing and housing requirements du not become a serious problem.” In spite of that, Mr Craig added, it would be idle to deny that there was room for a very great improvement in the standard of living in Egypt. That, also, was occupying the attention of the Government. Education was being extended, particularly among girls, and new hospitals were being built all over the country. “The problem of mortgage debts on land—you have it in New Zealand, too” —Mr Craig concluded, “has been taken in hand, and, it is hoped, finally disposed of as (lie result, of Ihe Government’s action in taking over large blocks of the debt and arranging repayments on easy terms. This has been possible through Ihe accumulated reserve fund. On the whoU, Egypt has come out of Ihe economic blizzard very well and is in a fair way lo take advantage of the world s improving economic condition.”