Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/387

 PRESENT SOCIAL ANT) POLITICAL POSITION. 811 For nearly a century the conquerors of western Europe ha>x» disputed the possession of Egypt, which was even in 1072 spoken of by Leibnitz as the natural centre of the Old World, and the key to all the colonial jMssessions on the shores of the Indian Ocean. The vital importance of this commanding position could not fail to be observed by statesmen who were contending for the possession of the Indian peninsula. Had the armies of the French Republic succeeded in retaining Egypt, which they had so rapidly overrun, there would have been an end to British rule in Hindustan, and England would have lost the inheritance of the Great Mogul. But after the destruction of the French fleet in Aboukir Bay, Great Britain, resum- ing undisputed possession of the ocean highways, again became in her turn the mistress of Egypt, without even having the trouble to conquer it, and the French were obliged to withdraw after two years of occupation. To the clash of arms succeeded diplomatic manauvres and incessant struggles for obtaining the upper hand at Cairo and Constantinople. At the time of the inauguration of the Suez Canal, which opened up a direct route for steamers to India, and was the work of a French engineer, France at last seemed on the verge of obtaining a kind of suzerainty over Egypt. But England, concentrating all her efforts to secure this highway to India, has finally succeeded in acquiring political possession of Egypt, just as she has secured to herself the commercial pre-eminence over the canal between the two seas. Oflicially, England intervenes only to advise and assist the sovereign, but in reality her envoys are not far from being the absolute masters of the land. They draw up the treaties, declare war, and conclude I)eace, distribute places and pensions, dictate the sentences to the magistrates. But they leave the authority to the Egj-ptian officials, when it is necessary to sanction lists of taxes or to undertake affairs for which it does not suit them to be respon- sible. It may be said that the Nile basin, with its 40,000,000 inhabitants, has for a period, more or less extended, virtually become part of the vast British Empire. Although the English generals have scarcely any army at their disposition, mer- cenaries of all nations will be found ready to assist them in finishing the conquest of the country, in recent times commenced on behalf of the Khedive and the Sultan by Munzinger, Baker, Gordon, Gessi, Stone, Prout, and others. But the military difficulties attendant upon the annexation of this country yriW not be the only ones that Great Britain will have to deal with. Even should the other European powers assist England in consolidating her supremacy in Egypt, this authority would not be supported, as in most other English colonies, by the co-operation of a population of British origin. Those amongst the foreigners settled in the country who dispose of the financial resources, establish industries, conduct the papers, and guide public opinion, are mostly Continental Europeans, Italians, Frenchmen, Greeks, and Austrians, whose interests and aspirations are often antagonistic to those of the English. These European immigrants, much better preferred by the natives to the phlegmatic Englishman, who will always be prevented by the climate from founding colonies properly so-called, form in the towns an ever-increasing community, which already numbers nearly 100,000