Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎100r] (201/473)

I
no^
strength of the spirit Of Egyptian Natl o.nri1 i am'w'hi r. h/-no ?-n
the 10 p°r c^nt. of the population to which he v. r as referring.
•Many men dreaded at heart the withdrav/al of British influence
fror: Egypt, but no man was prepared to stand up publicly and
say that he was in favour of ihe^rotectorate;
no r.an was prepared to stand up and say that
" cor pi to indopcndonco”
he did not want ./ If anybody was even
suspected favouring in any ' r ay British rule, he was imme
diately hauled over the coals and at once made to toe tho
line and make a public confession of his orthodoxy. T:
Sultan himself had said once to him (Lord Milner) when he
was talking of hisjjweakness and unpopularity, that he c^uld-b^
the most popular nan in Egypt on the following day if he.
followed the example of the Princes and agreed with their
manifesto. It would thus be seen that we were up against a.
solid phalanx of Egyptian opinion, and in his (Lord Milner’s)
view, if we were to keep any control over the country other
wise than by martial law we must break up the -10 per cent\ ol
the more educated classes and g%t some of the’ on our side,
i**, in order to do so, it was necessary to make some-.con-.
*
sldorable sacrifices. In the opinion of the Mission of
which be was Chairman, it would he possible to re-estaolish
genuine co-operaticn between the British and Egyptians in
the government of Egypt by giving to the latter, who for
vc hod professed to b"' tr- inim to =,<>1
forty ;ears past * / S OTern theaselv^
the aaire tndep ndent status which we contemplated giving to
the much less civilised Arabs in Mesopo'amia after a much
shorter period of tutelage. Ke noticed that the Secretary
of State for India had suggested that his .fission had been
bargaining with the Egyptian extremists. This was not sc.
Adly Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. was essentially a moderate, ani was net at all
anti-British: he had her-n mere instrumental in bringing
the wi.th tMi r>^io r i ^^yp+ and had
about/Conversations/than any o^ner r.an xn . hj v <
in his (Lord Milner’s) opinion the bost political head in
• ,