Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/23

Rh In England it tends to debilitate the government, and is as the breath of life to its political opponents.

It keeps France on the qui vive, inspires the press with matter for satire and objurgation, it sours the feeling between the French and British people, and imperils the good understanding between the two governments.

It is welcome to the nostrils of the Porte, and soothes the wounded self-love of the Turks, but it does this at the expense of England, and nourishes a spirit adverse to the establishment of that agreement on Egyptian affairs, which, as we shall presently show, is so eminently desirable.

Its suggestive inspiration renders the other States of Europe impatient, and also stimulates them to seek their opportunity in the embarrassment of England, suggesting the application of an obvious leverage, which operates a painful strain upon British diplomacy throughout Europe.

It permeates India, and tends to engender ideas which from the British point of view, at least, must be regarded as eminently unwholesome.

That all this is presently injurious, and that it is heavily fraught with future danger, our readers will be ready to concede.

If, then, England is to continue, for a while, to exercise a direct influence in Egypt, it is absolutely necessary that her position in that country should be fortified—not by more soldiers or more cannon, but by sympathy and confidence. But before there can be any real fortifying, the principal element