Printed papers on the political situation and military policy in Egypt [‎84r] (167/176)

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If the machinery of government has worked slowly, it must not be forgotten
that this is a constant phenomenon during the Egyptian summer, and that for six
weeks all the business of the Council of Ministers was held up by the King.
The faults of ignorance, vanity, moral cowardice and favouritism have been
apparent, but I hope that a nucleus has been found of hardworking, honest and
capable officials, who will not be above learning by experience, and that the forecasts
of a rapidly developing chaos in Egyptian administration, which were made in some
quarters when we abolished the protectorate, will be falsified.
The despatch in which I shall endeavour to survey the political situation will
reach your Lordship by the next bag.
1 have, &c.
ALLENBY, F.M.,
High Commissioner.
[E 11477/1/16] (2.)
Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.—(Received
October 23.)
(Xo. 836. Confidential.)
My Lord, Ramleh, October 15, 1922.
I HAVE the honour to refer to my despatch No. 799 of the 30th September. In
the present despatch I shall endeavour to give some account of the political progress of
the Sarwat Ministry and of the political situation in this country.
When the Ministry took office the breakdown of the negotiations with the
Egyptian delegation and the resignation of Adly Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. had been followed by a period
of political tension with no Ministry, and His Majesty’s Government had decided that
the only feasible way of proceeding with their policy of establishing normal and orderly
government in an independent Egypt, with security for Imperial necessities, was to
niake a unilateral declaration terminating the protectorate- and reserving British rights
in respect of four essential requirements.
This declaration enabled a Ministry to be formed of those elements of Egyptian
Nationalism which repudiated methods of violence or pure obstruction, and the Ministry
undertook, while respecting the reservations, to establish an Administration genuinely
under Egyptian control, to prepare for the abolition of martial law, and in particular to
elaborate a Constitution providing for Ministerial responsibility to a Parliament whose
creation was a necessary antecedent to any fruitful renewal of negotiations with His
Majesty’s Government. They had sufficient sense of reality to know that the half
was more than the whole, and sufficient patriotism and courage to act upon their
knowledge.
Some of their difficulties were already obvious. They commanded no great personal
popularity, they were deprived of the active assistance of Adly Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , and the respect
and prestige attaching to him, and of a group of ab’e and rising men who were his
partisans, and they were certain to encounter the bitter hostility of the Zaghlulist and
\Vatanist parties. Of the Zaghlulists some held political views not greatly differing
trom those of the Ministry, but were passionately attached to their own leader; while
others, as well as the Watanists, falsely held that Great Britain was the enemy, and
imagined that the profitable policy was to refuse any sort of compromise, and to
repudiate the suggestion that we had any sort of rights in Egypt or the Soudan.
The general line of attack which the opponents of the Ministry would take were also
evident. They would pretend that Sarwat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. had treacherously accepted a fallacious
shadow of independence, that he was the creature of Great Britain, that he intended
not to secure the abolition of martial law, but to exist by its support ; and, ignoring the
fact that the main object of his programme was to prepare a Constitution, to summon
a Parliament and to make Ministers responsible to it, they would accuse him of being
irresponsible and unrepresentative. The extremists among them would provoke or
commit acts of violence either out of blind political passion or with the more subtle
object of provoking the use of martial law, and thus discrediting the Ministry’s
intention of procuring its removal.
The Ministry has, on the whole, faced such attacks, and even considerable personal
danger, with courage. They have pursued their policy obstinately, and if they have
pursued it more slowly than might have been hoped, it is to be remembered that they
have had to proceed warily in the face of watchful and unscrupulous opponents.
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