The Egyptian Problem

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THE EGYPTIAN PROBLEM
CBAI
the later period of British control before the war), i may be well to try to gauge the real forces that la; behind the Nationalist movement. This movement, wa not by any means a new movement. Its origin, a>s w< have seen, could be traced back to the semi-militar revolt in the days of Arabi, and it had begun to reviv some time before Lord Cromer left Egypt. It had slaovn marked activity when Sir Eldon Gorst succeeded him and though driven for a while underground in Lor< Kitchener's time, largely by the prestige attaching t< that great soldier's name, it received a great deal of secre encouragement from the Khedive Abbas, who hoped t use it as an effective weapon against the British adminis trative control which he detested, and it played at time an unpleasantly prominent part in the Egyptian Legisla ture. It could always rely on Mahomedan feeling for , large measure of support. In the El Azhar Universit the establishment of the Protectorate, which plstce< Mahomedan people under the paramount authority of . Christian Power, was resented, in spite of all our a/ssui ances, as a blow dealt at the spiritual rights of th Ottoman Sultan as Khalif. Its thousands of turlbane< students became as ardent champions of complet independence as the pupils, past and present, of th Government schools and colleges who had imbibed f ror their Europeanised education a crude belief in Wester: ideals of liberty and in the saving virtue of democrat! institutions. The lawyers and practically all the prc fessional classes were imbued with Nationalism, wMc found its loudest if not its wisest champions in the na/tiv Press. The sense of injustice generated by the ra/pi increase in the number of Englishmen employed in th Egyptian public services and the attitude of aloofnes* if not worse, adopted by some of them even in the lilghe ranks towards their Egyptian colleagues and subordinate had given a great impetus to Nationalist sentiments i the large army of Government servants employed i almost every Department. To a new class of idle ricost momentous decision. The British Government, still believing apparently that the Nationalist movement was merely the outcome of a shallow propaganda engineered by a handful of discontented politicians, imagined they could stamp it out by striking at the leaders. At six o'clock on the afternoon of March 6th,it of havin