Typescript and printed cabinet papers and parliamentary papers on events in Egypt [‎101r] (201/520)

tained, to provide for the ever-advancing development of native talent
by an increase in the number of Egyptians employed in every branch,
and notably in the higher branches of the Administration, hitherto
too extensively filled by Europeans. They are willing to pursue in
consultation with your Highness’s Government the negotiations in
foreign courts necessary for the abolition of the Capitulations, so that
the international situation may be clear when the Egyptian legisla
tion necessary to take the place of the Capitulations is ready to be
passed. They would wish that the powers now exercised by the
commander-in-chief under martial law should be exercised only under
the Egyptian civil law by the Egyptian Government, and they will
gladly withdraw martial law as soon as the Act of Indemnity, which is
indispensable for the protection of that Government as well as of the
British authorities in Egypt, has been enacted and become operative
in all the civil and criminal courts in Egypt.
With regard to the future, His Majesty’s Government desire to
state in plain terms the policy which they intend to pursue. They
understand that the proposals presented to your Highness’s delega
tion w'ere rejected on the ground that the safeguards for British and
foreign interests contained in them would be fatal to the genuine
exercise of self-government. They deeply regret that the maintenance
of British troops in Egypt and the association of British officials with
the Ministries of Justice and Finance should be so gravely misunder
stood. The progress of Egypt towards her ideals will not only be
retarded, but completely jeopardised, if her people are tempted to
indulge their national aspirations, however sound and legitimate in
themselves, without sufficient regard to the facts which govern inter
national life. Nothing is gained by minimising national obligations
and exaggerating national rights. Extremist leaders who preach in
this vein are not a stimulus but a menace to Egyptian development.
By their influence on the course of events, they have repeatedly
challenged the interests and provoked the fears of foreign Powers;
and they have sought to affect the outcome of these negotiations
during the past few weeks by subversive appeals to popular ignorance
and passion. His Majesty’s Government do not consider that they
would be consulting Egypt’s welfare by making concessions to
agitation of this kind: and Egypt will make no progress until her
responsible leaders show the will and strength to put it down. The
world is suffering in many places at the present time from the cult of
a fanatical and purely disruptive type of nationalism. His Majesty’s
Government will set their face against it as firmly in Egypt as else
where. Those who yield to it only make more necessary and so
prolong the maintenance of those foreign sanctions which they
denounce.
In these conditions, for Egypt’s interest as much as for their own,
His Majesty’s Government will continue unshaken in their aims as
Egypt’s advisers and trustees. It is not sufficient for them to know
that they could exercise the right of re-entry into Egypt, if, left to
her own unaided counsels, she should revert to the waste and disorder
of the last century. They desire to see the work of Lord Cromer’s
generation completed, not recommenced. They do not aim at keeping
Egypt in tutelage. On the contrary, they desire to fortify the con
structive elements in Egyptian nationalism, to give them scope, and
to bring nearer the full attainment of the national ideal. But they
must insist on effective rights and powers to safeguard both Egypt’s