Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/46

32 two or three weeks' delay might cause the loss of the English Empire in India. Can England leave a matter of such moment to the caprice of a military adventurer?

In the presence of such interests, it is not difficult to understand what England has been fighting for. Aside from her obligations to the Khedive, she had immense interests in Egypt, and Egypt was in a state of anarchy, which threatened to destroy those interests. England was fighting to put down that anarchy, and to restore order and good government. In this she was fighting for the real interest of Egypt as well as her own. If the recent state of things continued, the country was ruined. The only hope was in prompt and decisive action, which should crush rebellion and reëstablish order. At the same time, England was fighting for the Suez Canal, as she would for Malta and Gibraltar, as outworks of Britain, whose preservation concerned the integrity of her mighty realm.

For these reasons, which might be enlarged to any extent, it is clear that England had a right to send her troops to Egypt to settle this business between a faithful ally, the present Khedive (whom the military party would sacrifice simply because he had been such a friend of England), and his rebellious soldiers. She had a right to go there, if she had a right to go anywhere, to fight for the security of her Indian Empire. In the battle which she undertook, she was fighting for our interests as well as her own: to make it safe for Americans to visit Egypt, to go up the Nile, and to pursue their lawful callings — their travels, or their business affairs, or their missionary enterprises — in the East.

And so the English are masters of Cairo! One more victory for civilization! To some this may seem a very un-American sentiment. Do we not claim America for the Americans, and should we not concede also, as a