Page:Problems of Empire.djvu/258

PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE. was succeeded by Lupton Bey, who, defended his Province long after the Mahdist Rebellion had cut him off from all communication with Khartoum and Egypt. In 1883, he was able to boast that he was the only one of the Soudan Governors who could give the Egyptian Government a clear profit of something like 60,000l. for that year. In the course of his advance to the Nile, Major Marchand has established several French posts in the Bahr-al-Gazal, and has proclaimed French sovereignty over places which were centres of Egyptian authority in the pre-Mahdist days. That is why, although the Fashoda incident may be closed, the Egyptian question is not yet settled.

The British people are not satisfied with the equivocal position in which they stand in Egypt. I have shown you what are our rights, what are our claims, and what are our responsibilities. The time has arrived when we must declare, in unmistakable terms, a Protectorate over Egypt and the whole of the Valley of the Nile. We have refrained from taking this step, which, as I have already pointed out, we might have taken fifteen years ago, more out of consideration for the susceptibilities of the French than for any other reason, and the result has been endless friction and irritation between the two nations ever since. It is good for neither that this state of things should continue, and it can only be put an end to by our accepting in name the position which we have long held in fact, viz., the position of the protectors of Egypt.

Are we strong enough to take the step which I am urging? We are stronger at sea to-day than we have been for years past. I stated here in the spring that we were strong enough to meet the navies of any two, 240