Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/20

16 Too much obscurity overhangs what passed between Tewfik and the National party after Tel-el-Kebir, for us to make any use in these pages of the statements current on the subject. But whatever may have been the real facts, they have left upon the Mahommedan mind an impression at once so deplorable and so indelible, that as a ruler of a Mahommedan people, Tewfik is impossible.

To resume, Tewfik is too slenderly gifted in point of intellect to take a clear view of any position in which he may be placed, and too infirm of purpose to follow out any line of conduct with consistency. His duplicity may be a symptom of weakness only, and not of moral obliquity. Be it so: let us regard it as the unconscious tripping of a man who either does not know his own mind, or has none to know. But this has practically nothing to do with the question. Doubtless there is much to be said in extenuation of Tewfik's shortcomings. But our concern is with the shortcomings themselves, with the consequences of them, with the position they have created for Tewfik in national opinion, and, above all, with the impossibility, owing to that position, of making any good use of him in the reconstruction of the shattered government of his country.

It has been urged, and on Tewfik's behalf, that, for the purposes of reorganisation in Egypt under British guidance, a passive Khedive is required. There may be some truth in this. But if the passive Khedive is surrounded by an active popular hate, his mere presence, however absolute may be his