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 POLITICAL HISTOEY.]

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and replaced by an English financial adviser. France naturally objected ' but having refused to co-operate with England in suppressing the revolt, she could not reasonably complain that her offer of co-operation in the work of reorganization was declined. At first the intention of the British Government was simply to restore the power of the Khedive, to keep His Highness for some time in the right path by friendl y advice, and to withdraw the British tioa. troops as soon as possible. As Lord Granville explained in a Circular to the Powers, the position of England in Egypt imposed on her “ the duty of giving advice with the object of securing that the order of things to be established shall be of a satisfactory character and possess the elements of stability and progress.” But there was to be no embarking on a general scheme of reforms, which would increase unnecessarily the responsibilities of the protecting Power and necessitate the indefinite prolongation of the military occupation. So far, therefore, as the British Government had a definite policy in Egypt, it was a politique de repldtrage. Even this policy was not strictly adhered to. Mr Gladstone’s Cabinet was as unstable as the public opinion it sought to conciliate. It had its hot fits and its cold fits, and it gave orders now to advance and now to retreat. In the long-run circumstances proved too strong for it, and it had to undertake a great deal more than it originally intended. Each little change in the administration engendered a multitude of others, so that the modest attempts at reform were found to be like the letting out of water. A tiny rill gradually became a boisterous stream, and the boisterous stream grew into a great river, • which spread to all sections of the administration and ended by inundating the whole country. Of the numerous questions awaiting solution, the first to claim immediate attention was that of the Sudan. The The Sudan Government had begun by excluding it question.0 ^rom problem, and by declaring that for events in these outlying territories it must not be held responsible. In that sphere of activity, therefore, the Egyptian Government might do as it thought fit. The principle of limited liability which this attitude assumed was soon found to be utterly untenable. The Sudan was an integral part of the Khedive’s dominions and caused, even in ordinary times, a deficit of £200,000 to the Egyptian Treasury. At that moment it was in a state of open rebellion, stirred up by a religious fanatic who proclaimed himself a Mahdi or Messias of Islam. An army of 10,000 men under an English general, Hicks Pasha, had been sent to suppress the revolt, and had been annihilated in a great battle fought on 5th November 1883, near Obeid. The Egyptian Government wished to make a new attempt to recover the lost province, and the idea was certainly very popular among the governing class, but Sir Evelyn Baring vetoed the project on the ground that Egypt had neither soldiers nor money to carry it out. In vain the Khedive and his Prime Minister, Sherif Pasha, threatened to resign, and the latter actually carried out his threat. The British representative remained firm, and it was decided that the Sudan should be, for the moment at least, abandoned to its fate. Nubar, though as strongly opposed to the abandonment policy as Sherif, consented to take his place and accepted somewhat reluctantly the new regime, which he defined as “the administration of Egypt under the government of Baring.” By this time the Mahdi was master of the greater part of the Sudan, but Khartum and some other fortified points still held out. The efforts made to extricate the garrisons, including the mission of General Gordon, the fall of Khartum, and the Nile Expedition under Lord Wolseley

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are described below, in the account given of military operations. The practical result was that the Khedive’s authority was limited to the Nile Valley north of Wadi Haifa. With the internal difficulties Sir Evelyn Baring had been struggling bravely ever since his appointment, trying to evolve out of the ever-changing policy and contradictory orders of the British Government Internal some sort of coherent line of action, and to raise the administration to a higher standard. For two or three years it seemed doubtful whether he would succeed. All over Egypt there was a feeling of unrest, and the well-meant but not very successful efforts of the British to improve the state of things were making them very unpopular. The introduction of English officials and English influence into all the administrative departments was resented by the native officials, and the action of the irrigation officers in preventing the customary abuses of the distribution of water was resented by the great landowners, who had been, from time immemorial, in the habit of taking as much as they wanted, to the detriment of the fellaheen. Even these latter, who gained most by the reforms, considered that they had good reason to complain, for the defeat of Arabi and the re-establishment of order had enabled the Christian money-lenders to return and insist on the payment of claims, which were supposed to have been extinguished by the rebellion. Worst of all, the Government was drifting rapidly towards insolvency, being quite unable to fulfil its obligations to the bondholders and meet the expenses of administration. All departments were being starved, and even the salaries of poorly paid officials were in arrear. To free itself from its financial difficulties the Government adopted a heroic remedy which only created fresh troubles. On the advice of Lord Northbrook, who was sent out to Cairo in September 1884 to examine the financial situation, certain revenues which should have been paid into the Caisse for the benefit of the bondholders were paid into the Treasury for the ordinary needs of the administration. Immediately the Powers protested against this infraction of the law of liquidation, and the Caisse applied for a writ to the Mixed Tribunals. In this way the heroic remedy failed, and to the internal difficulties were added international complications. Fortunately for Egypt, the British Government contrived to solve the international difficulty by timely concessions to the Powers, and succeeded' in negotiating the London Convention of March 1885, by which the Egyptian Government was relieved from some of the most onerous stipulations of the Law of Liquidation, and was enabled to raise a loan of £9,000,000 for an annual payment of £135,000. After paying out of the capital the sums required for the indemnities due for the burning of Alexandria and the deficits of the years 1882 and 1883, it still had a million sterling, and boldly invested it in the improvement of irrigation. The investment proved most remunerative, and helped very materially to save the country from bankruptcy and internationalism. The danger of being again subjected to the evils of an international administration was very great, for the London Convention contained a stipulation to the effect that if Egypt could not pay her way at the end of two years, another International Commission would be appointed. To obviate this catastrophe the British reformers set to work most energetically. Already something in the way of retrenchment and reform had been accomplished. The public accounts had been put in order, and the abuses in the collection of the land tax removed. The constant drain of money and men for the Sudan had been stopped. A beginning had been made for creating a new army to S. III. —89