Egyptian agriculturists were at the Nile's mercy; and the great river with fickle humor gave their fields too much in some years, too little in others, of the life-giving water. Moreover, for the increasingly important crops of sugar and cotton, a fairly regular supply of moisture, rather than an annual flood, was needed. British engineers solved the problem by constructing the great Assuan dam, more than a mile long and eighty-two feet thick, to check the floods and hold a reservoir of water, two hundred miles long, for gradual use in the dry season. By irrigation canals this water is distributed to the thirsty fields. It is the greatest achievement of the British in Egypt.1

Other reforms, also, the British accomplished. Three crying evils which Lord Cromer styles "The three C's-the Courbash, the Corvée, and Corruption," were attacked.2 The Courbash was the strip of hippopotamus hide with which the peasants were almost universally flogged; it was the favorite means of forcing laborers to work, of prompting unwilling witnesses to give evidence in judicial processes, or suspected criminals to confess their faults, of persuading taxpayers to meet their due and tenants to pay their rent. Egypt was ruled with the courbash, until the British administration forbade its use. The Corvée was compulsory labor. Each year a vast amount of labor was required, during the period when the Nile was low, to remove the accumulation of mud from the bottoms of the irrigation canals. The poorer peasants were compelled to do this work; in one district they had to work, without wages, 180 days in the year. As long as the courbash sang over their backs, they did the work, but with its abolition a new system had to be found. And though it required an additional governmental expenditure of two million dollars a year, the British substituted free labor and wages for the corvée, to a large extent. The third "C," Corruption, could not be entirely abolished, but we have Cromer's word that it "was greatly diminished."

But these were only the most conspicuous of the many reforms, some economic and some humanitarian, that were carried out.3

1Egypt No. 6 (1888); Cromer, op. cit., II, ch. 54.

'Cromer, op. cit., II, chs. 49-51.

Cromer's annual reports (Parliamentary Papers) afford a comprehensive record of these reforms. I have not dealt with the thorny question of the capitulations, but see for example Egypt No. (1905); Egypt No. 1, (1906); Egypt No. 1 (1907); Cromer, op. cit., ch. 52.

Railways were built, harbors developed, schools established. And from such reforms there can be little doubt that the fellahin, the downtrodden peasantry, greatly profited. Saved from the whip and forced labor, protected by wise laws from grasping moneylenders, encouraged in a hundred ways by a watchful government, the peasants gained greater freedom and prosperity than had ever been theirs.

The welfare of the peasantry meant increased population (the population has doubled since 1882),2 increased agricultural production, increased imports and exports and tax revenues. Cotton production was more than doubled, and the value of the crop rose from 9 million pounds (Egyptian) in 1881 to 52 in 1924. Most of the cotton was exported for manufacture, England taking the largest share. Imports increased from seven millions sterling in 1881 to forty-three in 1922, and most of the imports were cotton manufactures, coal, and iron and steel goods from England.

Yet the Egyptian was not happy. Cromer says, "The want of gratitude displayed by a nation to its alien benefactors is almost as old as history itself." But ingratitude is not the only reason why British rule was unpopular. There were instances of overbearing arrogance, and unfortunately in some cases, notably in the Denshawi incident, certain Englishmen felt it necessary to display ruthlessness in punishing native antagonism. But the chief and most obvious source of trouble was that the Egyptians, as they came more and more under European influence, learned to feel a crude sort of national consciousness and longed, like every other nation, for self-government whether it were good government or not. And in Egypt nationalism was intensified by Mohammedan hatred of the Christian.

Hoping to conciliate the natives, the British in 1913 modified the Organic Law, and merged the Legislative Council and General Assembly into a single Legislative Assembly with power

But in 1921-1922 the schools accommodated only 17% of the boys and 5% of the girls of school age, and of the 511,671 attending school, 269,897 were in private Moslem schools, and only 48,894 in government schools. Annuaire statistique de l'Egypte, 1923-1924, pp. 74-82.

From 6,831,131 in 1882 the population increased to 13,551,000 in 1922. 'But England's share is less than half the total. The United States, France, Italy, Germany, and other industrial countries secure more than half the Egyptian crop. See detailed figures in Annuaire Statistique de l'Égypte 1923-4, p. 385.

Op. cit., II, p. 571.

to propose, as well as to discuss, legislation. But the new Assembly, in its first meeting, showed a strong nationalist hostility to British domination. Then occurred the Great War of 1914. When Turkey entered the war, against Great Britain, the latter took advantage of the situation to declare Egypt no longer a Turkish province, but a British protectorate, in December, 1914. The pro-Turkish khedive, Abbas Hilmi, was deposed, and Hussein Kamel was given the throne, with the new title "Sultan of Egypt." Thus England fulfilled the aim of safeguarding the rights of the Turkish sultan and the authority of the khedive.

During the Great War, England ruled Egypt with a strong hand, disregarding the puppet "sultan," refusing to convene the Legislative Assembly, censoring the press, and suppressing nationalist agitation. Such tactics only made more Egyptians nationalists. At the close of the war, the Egyptian leaders appointed a peace delegation to put Egypt's case before the Paris Conference, and to claim the right of self-determination which Wilson, and Lloyd George, and other Allied orators, had so eloquently proclaimed. The Egyptian delegates were quietly arrested by British police and shipped to Malta, and General Allenby, who had won splendid laurels during the war in the Near East, was sent as Special High Commissioner to prevent the ominous unrest of Egypt from developing into a full-fledged rebellion. But even Allenby could not silence the clamor for independence. Then a mission of inquiry, headed by the celebrated empire-builder Lord Milner of South African fame, was sent down to Egypt. Milner returned discouraged. In London the commission interviewed Saad Zaghlul, leader of the Egyptian "peace delegation." In its report, the commission admitted that "the spirit of Egyptian Nationalism cannot be extinguished," and recommended that England should abolish the protectorate and grant Egypt independence on certain conditions.2

"INDEPENDENT” EGYPT

Great Britain's recognition of Egypt as "an independent sovereign State" in February, 1922, was clear evidence that in London the Egyptian situation was considered extremely grave.

Kitchener's report, Egypt No. 1 (1914), Cd. 7358, pp. 2-8. 'See Egypt No. 1 (1921), Cmd. 1131.

It is difficult, we repeat, to give up possessions. But England retained the rights which seemed most vital to imperial interests: (1) the right to defend the Suez Canal using Egyptian territory for military operations if necessary; (2) the right to defend Egypt against all foreign aggression or interference; (3) the right to protect foreign interests in Egypt; and (4) control of the "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan."'1

While these matters, "absolutely reserved" by Great Britain pending future discussion, were left unsettled, the Egyptians were allowed to draw up a constitution (1923), providing for the government of Egypt as an independent constitutional monarchy, with King Fuad as sovereign, a cabinet responsible to parliament, and a parliament elected by the people. The formerly persecuted peace delegate, Saad Zaghlul, the nationalist who had been imprisoned in Malta, now became premier of Egypt, and nationalism had full sway. So exuberant were the newly emancipated patriots, that they even ventured to insist, in firm tones, that the Sudan must be turned over to Egypt as her rightful heritage; one backward people, hardly freed from alien rule, demanded its right to rule another backward peoplesuch is the circular path of human logic. England, however, retained the Sudan. And General Allenby, we may add, remained in Egypt with British soldiers, for all Egypt's "independence."

Egyptian agitation against British rule in the Sudan reached a climax with the assassination, by Egyptians, of General Sir Lee Stack, Governor General of the Sudan and Sirdar (Commander) of the Egyptian Army, on Nov. 19, 1924. The British Government seized this opportunity to insist upon the withdrawal of all Egyptian officers and troops from the Sudan, and the increase of the area to be irrigated at Gezira, in the Sudan, to an unlimited figure. If this meant that Great Britain would draw off from the Nile an unlimited amount of water for the irrigation of British cotton plantations in the Sudan, it would be a grave threat to Egypt, for Egypt lives by the waters of the Nile. The British foreign minister, however, soon silenced criticism on this

Egypt No. 1 (1922), Cmd. 1592, pp. 27-31.

2 Zaghlul resigned in Nov. 1924 in consequence of the Stack murder affair (infra). His successor, Ziwar Pasha, was more tractable, as regards the British. Zaghlul's supporters claimed that Ziwar was kept in power by British influence and the presence of British garrisons in Egypt.

point by promising a joint inquiry as to the amount of water available for the Sudan after making full allowance for Egypt's needs.

This is the story of Britain in Egypt, but not the whole story. We have not mentioned the effect on American cotton planters of the increasing cotton-cultivation in Egypt. Nor have we mentioned the effect of England's aggression on European peace.

In January, 1882, just after the Anglo-French note was delivered to Egypt, Bismarck thought it "regrettable for the general European situation, to see the English cabinet gliding from one adventure into another'; and he predicted that England would have trouble with France. He had previously been inclined to favor France in the Egyptian question, but after England intervened, Herbert Bismarck told Lord Granville that Germany would not object even to annexation of Egypt by England. Granville of course was pleased, and Dilke (British undersecretary for foreign affairs) favored Herbert Bismarck with such frank expressions of his views as-"I am very much antiFrench"; "They (the French) behave like children."1

England's intervention in Egypt, in 1882, not only antagonized France, but disturbed the status quo in the Near East. Fortunately Gladstone's promise to get out of Egypt soon reassured the other powers, and peace was preserved. But France continued to cherish her grievance, and during the next few years France cooperated with Germany, in opposition to England, as regards African matters. In another chapter we have seen how the Anglo-French rivalry reached its climax when Kitchener and Marchand met at Fashoda in 1898. It was in no small part for the purpose of ending French opposition to British rule in Egypt that Great Britain formed the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904. The Anglo-French "Declaration" signed on April 8, 1904, provided that France "will not obstruct the action of Great Britain in that country (Egypt) by asking that a limit of time be fixed for the British occupation or in any other matter"; France also agreed to give the British a free hand in rais

'Die Grosse Politik, 3, No. 661; 4, nos. 724 ff. Bourgeois et Pagès, Origines de la Grande Guerre, pp. 205 ff. for French view. "How important, from the Downing Street point of view, French obstruction in Egypt was, may be clearly seen in Viscount Grey's reminiscences, Twenty-Five Years.

France No. 1 (1904) Cd. 1952.