File of printed papers marked 'Egyptian negotiation' between Curzon and Adly Pasha and the Egyptian delegation [‎62r] (123/178)

[Thi g Docu ment is the t*roperty of Hw Brita nnic Majegty’g Government.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
)(
[E 9527/260/16]
EGYPTIAN NEGOTIATIONS.
r , Minute by Mr. Lindsay.
Lord Curzon,
^ 1 tolcl y° u yesterday, we were to have had another meeting this morning with
the Egyptians but at the appointed hour, instead of the whole delegation, Adly came
alone. He said that these full meetings, where everyone has to sustain his point of
view by argument of some sort, are useless, and he wanted to try by quiet discussion
whether he could not come to some agreement. In the hour and a half’s talk that
ensued there was m fact not one word on either side of argument “to the gallery”;
both he and we faced facts and discussed them quite frankly.
lie started off on the Financial Adviser, and made it quite plain that, in his
personal opinion, some such official was wanted, and equally plain that the clamour of
an Egyptian opposition would make the provision of an avowed official of this nature
impossible. His position was now still more difficult, because, if the “ Caisse de la
Dette was to remain as at present, it would no longer be possible to camouflage a
financial Adviser under the cloak of a Debt Commissioner. On this we remarked that,
though the functions of the Debt Commissioner were very narrowly defined in E<ryptian
law, so that he was useless for our purposes, could we not give him a dual personality
-make him a Debt Commissioner and something else besides? There was this
difficu ty that the law provided that he should have no other functions ; but we had
n i n* ,10 ^ er ! t le flagrantly and blatantly by the appointment made of a French
Debt Commissioner, who was also manager at a French bank, and nobody had said
anything. 1 erhaps, therefore, we might make the Caisse a jumping off ground for
something more effective than a mere Commissioner of the Debt.
We then turned to the Judicial Adviser, as to whom Adly felt far greater difficulty
because, as he said, you can t make him something without making him everything
However, m the course of talk, he made two new suggestions. The first was why
don t you appoint some official under the High Commissioner, whom he could send
anywhere to investigate any complaint or abuse ; then there would be no need to put
him into any treaty at all. F
This is the conception of advisers put forward in Hayter’s memorandum, about
winch you spoke to me last night. We therefore displayed interest in the idea,
ascei tamed that what was in Adly s mind was a kind of inspector who would have to
depend for his ability to get information from Egyptian offices on the prestige of his
position as a servant of the British representative; and did not commit ourselves in
any way.
. second suggestion was that it might be reasonable and feasible to
stipulate that the commandants of police in Alexandria, Port Said, and perhaps
Cano should be British. This he thought would be possible because everyone knew
what a commandant of police was and could define his powers in his own mind, and
probably would not object to their being English. As he said, they had had foreign
commandants in Alexandria beiore the occupation.
This idea we took up and we proceeded on the lines of breaking up the Judicial
Adviser into Ins component parts. We suggested first that it would be necessary to
have an Inspector-General over all three commandants, at Cairo, to co-ordinate their
admmistrations. And as something is wanted on the legal and legislation side, we
suggested that Europeans should be appointed in the Ministries of the Interior and
•Justice as conseijlers sultamens. ” (These are the Legal Advisers to the various
Ministries, who, united into a committee, are the Law Officers of the State, and also
constitute a kind of Committee on Legislation.) These ideas, which are all in
consonance with the justifications which Adly found for himself when he suggested
English 1 bliee Commandants, he did not demur to; but he said he was speaking
without prevmus consu tation with his delegation ; and of course the conversation ha?
no binding force on either party to it.
All these suggestions therefore way fall through ; but for the moment we have
perhaps got off unfruitful ground. We are resuming conversations to-morrow.
August 19, 1921.
C.
421—7 [6824]