Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/14

10 themselves that they were under obligations to him, as was seen by the replies to Lord Randolph Churchill's accusations against Tewfik in the House of Commons.

With all our respect and admiration for British chivalry we are bound to say that, on this occasion, it was singularly misplaced. The English might have lost sight of the fact that the sacrifices of men and money which their country had made, were not for the sake of the man, but for that of the principle of which he chanced to be the embodiment. But it seems strange, to say the least of it, that they should have forgotten that it was through his egregious incapacity that the necessity for these sacrifices had arisen.

As to England being under obligations to Tewfik, the idea is pure absurdity. To the "amiable young prince" the appearance of the troops upon the scene was salvation. Death stared him in the face. His personal safety, the recovery of his shattered authority, everything, in fact, depended upon British assistance. All he desired to do was to throw himself into the arms of his deliverers. He had, moreover, neither the imagination to conceive, nor the energy to follow, any other course.

In this confusion of misapplied principle and misplaced sentimentality, the English have never practically recognised the impossibility of building up a strong administration in Egypt with Tewfik at its head. They would have had a better chance of doing so even with his father; for although Ismail, hated and discredited quite as much as his son, could