The Egyptian Problem

xii THE BREAKDOWN OF THE CONTROL 209
Lqrd Kitchener had been driven by the ex-Khedive's incorrigible bad faith to contemplate the necessity of enforcing it in 1914, had there been no war. That the principle has occasionally been enforced against Egyptian Ministers who definitely refused to follow British advice there are cases on record to show. The first was that of Sherif Pasha, whose refusal to agree to the abandonment of the Sudan provoked Lord Granville's despatch. Sometimes the issue was not so clearly stated, and the resignation of various Egyptian Premiers, from Nubar and Riaz down to Hussein Rushdi, has frequently been due not so much to any difference on one specific point as to a general divergency of views between them and the British representative for the time being. The latter's influence was anyhow almost always paramount in the selection of a new Prime Minister and in the constitution of his Cabinet. When, for instance, Riaz resigned in 1895, Lord Cromer told me at the time that he had had to negative two or three suggestions made to him by the Khedive as to who should succeed him, and had finally been obliged to tell him point-blank that Nubar was, in his opinion, the only Prime Minister possible in the circumstances, and Abbas, much as he disliked Nubar, sent for him and asked him to form the new Cabinet.
A much more obscure question is how the principle laid down by Lord Granville adjusted itself to the normal everyday relations between the Egyptian Ministers and the Residency, and between British Advisers and officials and their Egyptian colleagues in the different I
branches of the Administration. Those relations were certainly not and could hardly be governed by any definite rules and regulations. The Residency dealt officially with the Egyptian Ministers alone. With regard to questions of administration it naturally relied very largely upon the opinions of the English Advisers and officials actually in the Egyptian services. It was the custom, I believe, to summon them to conferences at the Residency on matters deemed to be of primary
p particular form it thenevident alacrity, the majoritym his work in the above circumstances" is committing an offence under the Proclamation above cited and any personrstatement. The Special