Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎157r] (316/473)

27
negotiated, would express with much more detail and in terms of greater precision.
The real issue here was not whether Egypt should be free to follow a foreign
policy independent of Great Britain—the impossibility of our assenting to this was
not disputed—but whether this principle necessarily involved the conduct of all her
foreign relations remaining in British hands.
This was a question upon which we had already, before discussing it with the
Egyptians at all, come to a very definite conclusion. In our opinion British control
should be limited to Egypt’s political relations. Egyptian commercial or other
interests of a non-political character in foreign countries had better be left in
Egyptian hands. These interests are numerous and growing. The development of
commerce and communications, the rapidly increasing number of Egyptians who
now travel or reside abroad, especially in Western Europe, and the multifarious
connections which they form there constitute a need for a certain amount of official
protection. If the duty of looking after all Egyptian private interests abroad is to
continue to fall upon British diplomatic and consular agents, it will become an
excessive burden. And the inevitable failure to discharge that duty to the satisfac
tion of the Egyptians will be a constant source of grievance. For these reasons it
seemed to us from the first to be eminently desirable that Egypt should appoint
representatives of her own in foreign countries.
But what we originally contemplated was that these Egyptian representatives
should have only consular and not diplomatic status. It was on this point that
during our discussions in London we came, not without hesitation, to adopt a
different view. The Egyptians were all absolutely unanimous in maintaining that
the denial of diplomatic status to the representatives of Egypt vitiated the idea of
an Alliance and would make the settlement we were contemplating entirely
unacceptable to their countrymen. And in this assertion we believed them to be
justified. For, even while in Egypt, we'had realised that all Egyptians, including
the Sultan and his Ministers, however much they were divided on other questions,
were united in their desire for the diplomatic representation of their country abroad.
It was a sore point with all of them that, when declaring the Protectorate, we had
dispensed with an Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs and placed the Egyptian
Foreign Office, wdth which it was found impossible to dispense, under the High
Commissioner. The hope was universal that, when the time came to put the relations
of Great Britain and Egypt on a permanent footing, we should allow the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs once more to have an Egyptian chief and foreign representatives, as
of old, to be directly accredited to the ruler of Egypt. And on the same principle it
was hoped that, now that Turkish suzerainty had disappeared, Egyptian repre
sentatives in those foreign countries to which it might be necessary to send them
would enjoy a similar status to that of foreign representatives in Egypt.
In this matter, therefore, we could have no doubt that the Egyptian delegates
were speaking for all their countrymen. And indeed they were most emphatic in
declaring that, unless we could meet them on this point, there was no prospect of
settling the future relations between Great Britain and Egypt by the method of
agreement. On the other hand this recognition of the status of Egypt would, as
they affirmed, be so great a satisfaction to national pride that it would make the
acceptance of all our other conditions easy. And what, they asked, were we afraid
of ? We recognised that Egypt had many interests of her own in foreign countries,
which could best be looked after by Egyptians. There was no advantage to Great
Britain in withholding from the men entrusted with the care of those interests the
dignity of diplomatic status. For they could not take any action injurious to
British interests or conflicting with British policy, without breaking the Treaty,
which, as had already been agreed between us, was to be so drafted as to preclude
the possibility of such action. Moreover, the number of Egypt’s diplomatic
representatives abroad would be very limited. Egypt did not desire, and could not
afford, to have such representatives in more than a few countries. The fact that
everywhere else Egyptian interests would be entrusted to the care of Great Britain
marked the specially intimate character of the relations between the two countries.
We could not but feel that these were weighty considerations. At the same
time it was evident, as we strongly insisted, that the presence of Egyptian
diplomatists, even in a few European capitals, and of foreign diplomatists in Cairo,
would afford opportunities for intrigue, which might lead to much trouble. The very
fact that these diplomatists would, in the political sphere, have really nothing to do
might tempt them to justify their existence by transgressing their proper functions.
But the delegates would not admit that there was any real danger of this happening.
[4941] E 2