'Egypt: The Soudan' [‎4v] (8/36)

is no indication of such a co-dominion. All that there seems to be is a delegation of
authority by the Khedive to an officer nominated by agreement with the British
Government.
18. Additional evidence in favour of this view is to be found in the fact that
under the new arrangement the whole charge for the very considerable deficit in the
administration of the Soudan, amounting annually to about *2.000,000/., was a charge
upon the Egyptian budget. It is inconceivable that the Egyptian Government should
have consented to bear this expense unless they had believed that the Soudan still
remained part of the territories of the Khedive, and the British Government, by its
refusal to bear any part of the expense, seems to have given up any right to claim
that it was in any real manner a co-sovereign.* Finally, we must note that the agree
ment was never officially communicated to foreign Governments; the convention,
therefore, has no force as against other States; the Khedive, in signing it, did not
perform any act of external sovereignty, and he was only exercising his right of
making arrangements for the internal administration of the territory accorded to him
by the firmans.
Lord Salisbury's Statements.
19. I venture to think that difficulties of interpretation to a large extent arise
not so much from the text of the agreement itself as from the statements made at the
time, both confidentially and publicly, by Lord Salisbury. It was he who, more
clearly than Lord Cromer, laid stress on the theory of title by right of conquest.
Obviously he was influenced in doing this by the desire to eliminate as far as
possible the assertion of the suzerainty of the Sultan. In conversations with the
French Ambassador on the 6th and 12th October, 1898, his language is not incon
sistent with the view that all which had happened was the restoration of the dormant
authority of Egypt:—
“ I pointed out to him that the Egyptian title to the banks of the Nile had
certainly been rendered dormant by the military successes of the Mahdi, but
that the amount of right, whatever it was, which by those events has been
alienated from Egypt had been entirely transferred to the conqueror.”
“ I generally insisted on the view that the Valley of the Nile had belonged,
and still belonged, to Egypt, and that whatever impediment or diminution that
title might have suffered from the conquest or occupation of the Mahdi had been
removed by the victory of the Anglo-Egyptian army of the 2nd September.”!
But in conversation with the Turkish Ambassador, Lord Salisbury used language
of a different complexion :—
“ I said we had undoubtedly conquered the territory governed by the
Khalifa Since these firmans had been granted the Soudan had been
conquered by an invader whom the Sultan did not attempt to resist, and whom
the Khedive was not able to drive back. It had been conquered territory for
thirteen years. There was no ground in international law for saying that when,
mainly by the action of a third party, such as Great Britain, the Khalifa was
driven out of the territory he had conquered, the rights of the Sultan, which
had been extinguished thirteen years ago, revived in force for his benefit, though
he had taken no part whatever in recovering them from the dominion of the
Khalifa"!
And in other conversations during January and February 1899 he gives expression
to similar views. We have here, then, the theory that the rights of the Sultan had
lapsed, that there had been an invasion, a conquest, a reconquest, and that, con
sequently, a completely new state of things had arisen. It would have been very
difficult to defend this language against criticism, and Lord Salisbury, while he
continued to give expression to his views to the Turkish Ambassador, always refused
to enter into any discussion of the point. The statement is incorrect. There had
* The financial arrangements and the argument which may he derived from them can only he discussed
by someone who has personal knowledge of Egyptian administration. A French writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. quotes the following
resolution passed by the Legislative Council of Egypt at the first meeting after the publication of the
convention of January 11), 1S1)9 : “ Nous avons constate qu’aux depenses figure une somme de £ E. 417,000,
destinee a combler le deficit des recettes du Soudan, bien que le Couvernement n’ait fait mention ni des
recettes ni des depenses. Le Conseil legislatif approuve, neanmoins, cette somme, attendu que le Soudan
fait partie integrante de rEgypte.”
t “ Egypt, No. 3. (ISOS).”^
J Lord Salisbury to Mr. N. O’Conor, February 22, 1891).