Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎31r] (61/473)

V
At the same time it must be borne in mind that, owing to the backwardness of
the mass of the people, of whom 90 per cent, are still quite illiterate, it will be many
years before any elected Assembly is really representative of more than a comparatively
limited class. Parliamentary government under the present social conditions means
oligarchical government, and, if wholly uncontrolled, it would be likely to show too
little regard lor the interests of the majority of the Egyptian people.
The history of British rule in Egypt, especially in its earlier stages, has been
marked by some great and striking improvements in the condition of the fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. , and
as long as Great Britain continues to exercise any measure of control over the internal
affairs of .Egypt it is both our duty and our interest to use our influence for the
promotion of further relorms necessary lor the protection of the mass of the people
and for their advancement in education and capacity for self-government.
Whatever may be the immediate future, it seems to us essential that the British
Administration in Egypt should make a far greater effort than heretofore to establish
contact with the Egyptian people, to explain its policy and to refute the misstatements
of fact which form so large a part of the campaign against it in the Egyptian news
papers. The time is past when British representatives can, in reliance on their own
good intentions, permit a stream of uninformed criticism to continue without an effort
to correct it ; and if the Legislative Assembly is to resume its sittings and Egyptians
are to obtain a greater control of their own affairs, it will be more than ever necessary
that the essential objects of British policy in Egypt should be kept constantly before
the Egyptian people.
Speeches or statements in the British Houses of Parliament will not of themselves
meet this necessity. These, as we have frequently observed during our stay in Egypt,
are liable to distortion in transmission or translation, and become a fruitful source of
misunderstanding and recrimination. Nor is it sufficient that warnings and contradic
tions should be issued to the newspapers. Positive explanations of British aims and
policy must be conveyed to the Egyptian people either in public speeches or
communications to the press, and the heads of the administration must be prepared to
take an active part in defending their measures when challenged. In this, as in many
other respects, a vigorous initiative, in place of a passive acceptance of adverse
circumstances, is a primary condition of successful administration.
. VII. —Thb Soudan.
None of the preceding paragraphs have any application to the Soudan. That
country is physically, ethnically and historically quite distinct from Egypt, and in
some respects presents a sharp contrast to it.
While the great majority of the people of Egypt are comparatively homogeneous,
the Soudan is divided between Arabs and Negroids, and within each of these two
great racial groups there are a number of races and tribes differing widely from one
another and often mutually antagonistic.
But while thus greatly divided amongst themselves, the Soudanese are at one in
their dislike of the Egyptians. That dislike grew to hatred in consequence of the
gross misgovernment of the Soudan in the days of the Khedive Ismail And though,
as the memory of former Egyptian oppression fades, this hatred is dying out, the
great diversity of character between Egyptians and all classes of Soudanese is
calculated to keep up a certain antipathy between them.
This diversity, however, is much greater in some cases than in others. The Arabs
of the Soudan speak dialects of the same language as the Egyptians and are united to
them by the bond ol religion. Islam, moreover, is spreading even among the non-
Arab races of the Soudan. These influences mitigate in various degrees, but they
nowhere wholly overcome the differences of race and character which divide the
Egyptians from the Soudanese.
The political bonds which have at intervals in the past united Egypt with the
Soudan have always been fragile. Egyptian conquerors have at various times overrun
parts and even the whole of the Soudan. But it has never been really subdued by, or
in any sense amalgamated with, Egypt. The Egyptian conquest of the Soudan in the
last century was especially disastrous for both countries. After years of bloodshed
and oppression, which failed to establish orderly government for any length of time,
Egyptian rule was finally overthrown by the Mahdist rebellion, and the Egyptians
were driven out of all but a small corner of the Soudan. As a consequence of this
breakdown, Great Britain was obliged to undertake several costly expeditions for the
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