The Egyptian Problem

114 THE EGYPTIAN PROBLEM CHAP.
either gave up politics in disgust, or joined hands in the bitterness of their hearts with the more Advanced party, as Zaghlul did when, after his resignation, he entered the first Legislative Assembly elected under the new Organic Law and was chosen by it to be its only non-official Vice-President. Some among this more extreme party were, however, like Zaghlul, anti-Khedivial rather than anti-British, and their hostility to the Occupation was largely due to the acquiescence of the British control in the revival of many of the old abuses of Khedivial autocracy—an acquiescence which they regarded as a betrayal of the Gromer tradition and of themselves. Meanwhile the? " patriotic " section of the Nationalist party had itself been broken up into two factions. For when once it had fulfilled the main purpose for which it had been originally favoured by Abbas and destroyed the " popular " party, it lost its chief usefulness in the eyes of the Khedive, who began in turn to be alarmed at the very intimate relations entertained by some of its members with the most advanced wing of the " Young Turk " Committee of Union and Progress. A crisis had akeady occurred in 1911, when some of the Egyptian extremists had to fly to Constantinople, whilst others saved themselves by making their submission to the Khedive and forming a- new " Khedivial" group of their own.
The time was bound to come when even such a master of Oriental intrigue as Abbas would show his 'hand too clearly and too often not to exhaust even Lord Kitchener's somewhat cynical tolerance. He skated for years on very thin ice with undeniable adroitness. He felt his way at first cautiously. He had a real personal regard for Sir Eldon Gorst, who had been always inclined to indulge him as a spoilt child since the time of his accession to the Khediviate, and on more than one occasion he showed himself willing to listen to a personal appeal from Sir Eldon to redress some particular act of gross injustice. One of the very few acts of unselfish kindliness which stand to Abbas's credit was the visit which heocialf light railways and the introduc