Aug, 28.
Sir Miles Lampson learnt in China—a good school Jet it be said—how arduous is the tark of negotiating a treaty of relationship. He knew that, when on promotion from Nanking to Cairo he had to assume the High Commissionership of Egypt and the Sudan, the possibility of having to essay that tasse was by no means remote. The Knowledge that six previous attempts had been made without success may have brought him mixed comfort. The abolition of the British Protectorate in February 1922 carried with it the recognition of Egypt as a sovereign state, subject to four points reserved for agreement: safeguarding imperial communica side aggression; protection of for-ign interests and minorities; the status of the Sudan.
Mustapha Nahas Pasha, the Wafd leader of to-day's "United Front" and the successor to Zaghlul Pasha, had been the Egyptian negotiator of the treaty offered by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government, in 1930. The discussions broke down over the Sudan clauses, The draft treaty then proposed went far beyond the safeguards considered essential to the Milner Committee of 1920, Sir Miles Lampson has had no-easy task for, in 1930, when the last rupture occurred, ' Nahas Pasha had been assured by Mr. Arthur Henderson that the offer stood. Changed conditions have certain respects lessoned anxieties and suspicions on both sides, but human nature and especially Watd human nature is always inclined to uecept the point at which previous negotiations wore broken off as the start for the next advance.
The storm which arose over a misinterpretation of Sir Samuel Hoare's remarks at the Lord Mayor's Banquet of November 9 last, has had the unexpectedly beneficial effect of giving Egypt a political unity hitherto unattainable for to the United Front then formed the' Wafd adhered, thus abandoning its former attitude of aloofness, Its strength as the most powerful single party, made its leader, Nahas Pasha. the natural leader of the United Front. In 1930 the Egyptian may be gathered from the fact that in February last one of the most experienced observers of Egyptian affairs, Mr. Arthur Merton, expressed the view: the negotiators may find dimeulty in accepting terms which will inevitably fall short of those of six years go, The events of the past few months tend to inspire a pessim= istic view.
If, when receiving congratulations to-day, Sir Miles Lampson and Nahas Pasha, with the modesty which should be and assuredly must be theirs, desire to find a suitable object of their joint gratitude, he must be Signor Mussolini, No-one quite knows what is going on behind the vell of the Empire of Abyssinia and most people are prepared to walt for Rome's version in good time, However tha may be, the sudden change in the status of Abyssinia has radically affected the positions of Egypt and the Sudan—now neighbours to a state of potentially great military strength. Moreover the emergence of a more aggressive Italian Empire on the highroad to India and Australia has given British opinion of the Egyptian problem a piquant tum, Where Great Britain was prepared to make no concession she might easily be far more amenable because the significance of the concession had lost weight or become overshadowed, Where Egypt was previously ready to be truculent, she in her turn might be apprehensive lest truculence would lead to the withholding of vital support for the infant independent state.
generally understood that British troops will no longer enjoy the amenities of Cairo and will have to face the rigours of Ismailia, In return for that sop to Egyptian self-respect, the British alr strength in Egypt is to be increased and Alexandria is to become a naval base, Exypt joins the League of Nations, "Two thoughts may be commended for application to. this solution of a long-standing problem: the first is that Great Britain, in spite of the depressing tendencies elsewhere, adheres to her progress sive policy in the East; the second is that her courage and readiness the burden of her res-tics are still at the service national liberty and international security.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.