Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎63r] (125/473)

had completely got the upper hand. The practical question
was whether the price which the Mission was prepared to
recommend to Great Britain to pay for this separation of
the sheep from the goats was too high. The Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs had quite clearly pointed out its
points. It had always be<-'n made perfectly clear to the
Egyptians with whom his (Lord Milner's) Commission had been
dealing, that His Majesty’s Government were not committed in
any way, although he personally and his colleagues were com
mit ted to advocating a settlement on the lines laid down in
th'-ir Memorandum of August last.
THF PRIME MINISTER said he would like Lord Milner to give
a picture of what he thought would be achieved under his
proposals. He wondered whether the Egyptians would be pre-
pared to take advice now in the saa.e way as they did twenty-
years ago, for it ir.us t be remembered that at that time the
situation was very different. For exas pie, the Egyptian
Go’-emrant could not then get any money, whereas now they
probably would think that they could raise a loan just as well
as anyone else.
LORD MILKER said that his idea was that, under his scheme,
the situation would revert to what it was twenty or thirty-
years ago, when the British Government had much less actual
power dn Egypt but much greater influence. Under the present
arrangement the want of co-operation would bring things en
tirely to a standstill, and he thought we \.oul^ got uuch
greater efficiency if we gave up direct control and relied
on greater influence. He did not think that anyone doubted
for a moment that th< Egyptians would ha-e to have some
help, and that they would prefer British to anything
else. They certainly want'd to run their internal a r»
on their own lines, and in that respect to get r~d
outside interference. IVhen he had been in Egypt previously,
Ml questions in connection with finance and irrigation, and
practically everything else, had beer, dealt with by the
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