III
It was said in 1884 that the organisation of Egypt was a subject, whether regarded from the English or the European point of view, that was probably more complicated and more fraught with possible dangers in the future, than any question of foreign policy with which England had had to deal for the last fifty years or more.
The arguments against prolonged English occupation were tolerably clear. It would freeze all cordiality between ourselves and the French. It would make us a Mediterranean military power. In case of war, the necessity of holding Egypt would weaken us. In diplomacy it would expose fresh surface to new and hostile combinations. Yet, giving their full weight to every one of these considerations, a British statesman was confronted by one of those intractable dilemmas that make up the material of a good half of human history. The Khedive could not stand by himself. The Turk would not, and ought not to be endured for his protector. Some other European power would step in and block the English road. Would common prudence in such a case suffer England to acquiesce and stand aside? Did not subsisting obligations also confirm the precepts of policy and self-interest? In many minds this reasoning was clenched and clamped by the sacrifices that England had made when she took, and took alone, the initial military step.
Egyptian affairs were one of the heaviest loads that [pg 119]
Occupation Of Egypt
weighed upon Mr. Gladstone during the whole of 1884. One day in the autumn of this year, towards the end of the business before the cabinet, a minister asked if there was anything else. “No,” said Mr. Gladstone with sombre irony as he gathered up his papers, “we have done our Egyptian business, and we are an Egyptian government.” His general position was sketched in a letter to Lord Granville (Mar. 22, 1884): “In regard to the Egyptian question proper, I am conscious of being moved by three powerful considerations. (1) Respect for European law, and for the peace of eastern Europe, essentially connected with its observance. (2) The just claims of the Khedive, who has given us no case against him, and his people as connected with him. (3) Indisposition to extend the responsibilities of this country. On the first two I feel very stiff. On the third I should have due regard to my personal condition as a vanishing quantity.”
The question of the continuance of the old dual control by England and France was raised almost immediately after the English occupation began, but English opinion supported or stimulated the cabinet in refusing to restore a form of co-operation that had worked well originally in the hands of Baring and de Blignières, but had subsequently betrayed its inherent weakness. France resumed what is diplomatically styled liberty of action in Egypt; and many months were passed in negotiations, the most entangled in which a British government was ever engaged. Why did not England, impatient critics of Mr. Gladstone and his cabinet inquire, at once formally proclaim a protectorate? Because it would have been a direct breach of her moral obligations of good faith to Europe. These were undisputed and indisputable. It would have brought her within instant reach of a possible war with France, for which the sinister and interested approval of Germany would have been small compensation.
The issue lay between annexation and withdrawal,—annexation to be veiled and indirect, withdrawal to be cautious and conditional. No member of the cabinet at this time seems to have listened with any favour whatever to the mention of annexation. Apart from other [pg 120] objections, it would undeniably have been a flagrant breach of solemn international engagements. The cabinet was pledged up to the lips to withdrawal, and when Lord Hartington talked to the House of Commons of the last British soldier quitting Egypt in a few months, nobody ever doubted then or since that he was declaring the sincere intention of the cabinet. Nor was any doubt possible that the intention of the cabinet entirely coincided at that time with the opinion and wishes of the general public. The operations in Egypt had not been popular,[72] and the national temper was still as hostile to all expansion as when it cast out Lord Beaconsfield. Withdrawal, however, was beset with inextricable difficulties. Either withdrawal or annexation would have simplified the position and brought its own advantages. Neither was possible. The British government after Tel-el-Kebir vainly strove to steer a course that would combine the advantages of both. Say what they would, military occupation was taken to make them responsible for everything that happened in Egypt. This encouraged the view that they should give orders to Egypt, and make Egypt obey. But then direct and continuous interference with the Egyptian administration was advance in a path that could only end in annexation. To govern Egypt from London through a native ministry, was in fact nothing but annexation, and annexation in its clumsiest and most troublesome shape. Such a policy was least of all to be reconciled with the avowed policy of withdrawal. To treat native ministers as mere ciphers and puppets, and then to hope to leave them at the end with authority enough to govern the country by themselves, was pure delusion.
So much for our relations with Egypt internally. Then came Europe and the Powers, and the regulation of a financial situation of indescribable complexity. “I sometimes fear,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville (Dec. 8, [pg 121]
Egyptian Finance