Page:Great Britain and the Suez Canal.djvu/10



this moment the attention of all Europe is fixed upon the course of events in Egypt. The Egyptian policy of our Government, a matter of deep interest to all the great States of Europe, is doubly interesting to us, the citizens of the United Kingdom. Men entertain different opinions as to what that policy should be, but each would justify his opinion by referring to the vital interests of our Empire in the East. One question has been hotly discussed, the question whether any special interest of England, apart from the rest of Europe, binds us to follow the perilous course entered on by Lord Salisbury, to continue his co-partnership with France in the management of Egyptian affairs, a course leading to impossible positions, a co-partnership dangerous to international amity; or whether we are free to carry out a policy which, in the hands of the Liberal Government, has elsewhere proved so successful, the policy of settling those affairs in concert with the other Powers of Europe, who are equally interested in them. The latter seems to me the calm, dignified policy of a nation strong in its own position and in the consciousness of its own power; the former seems the fussy and timorous policy of a government afraid of everybody, and, therefore, meddling with everything.

Most people seem to believe that we have in Egypt a vital interest which we are bound, more than other nations, to defend, in the free and unrestricted use of the Suez Canal. Few seem disposed to question the doctrine that the open passage through the Suez Canal is indispensable to the commercial prosperity, to the political greatness, and to the very integrity of the British Empire.

An attempt, then, to demonstrate the fallacy of the popular idea that through Egypt and the Suez Canal our enemies can strike at our mercantile greatness and at our imperial power, is not likely to meet with a favourable hearing. Yet I hope to show this, and illustrate it from my own personal experience. And if it can be