Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎170r] (342/473)

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6. Add the following paragraph :—
The constitutional Head of the State and the succession to the Throne, being
already determined, will not be affected by the new Organic Statute, and will lie
outside the scope of the legislature to be set up thereunder.
11. Xew article :—
The relations between Great Britain and Egypt established by the treaty
referred to in article 3 will, from the moment when such treaty comes into force,
supersede the Protectorate declared by Great Britain on the \%th December, 1914.
Great Britain will communicate the terms of the treaty to foreign Powers, and will
support an application by Egypt for admission to the League of Nations.
It will be seen that I have not provided specifically in any of the above amendments
for the implied incorporation of Egypt in the British Empire. I would propose in the
explanatory despatch to Lord Allenby to invite him to place before the Egyptian
Government the earnest desire of His Majesty’s Government, while fully maintaining
the independence of Egypt, to see her Prime Minister take part in any future meetings
of the Imperial Conference.
Finally as to procedure. It is, I think, clear that the Milner Report must be
published ; but it is also clear that if it were to be published now, or alone, any attempt
to modify or amend it, if such be decided upon by His Majesty s Government, would
be rendered welLmgh impossible, while it would become the irreducible minimum for
which the Egyptian Nationalists would contend. 1 suggest therefore, as the best
procedure in the circumstances, that after deciding whether or not and to what extent
to accept my amendments, a despatch should be sent to Lord Allenby enclosing
Lord Milner’s Report, setting out the objections of His Majesty’s Government to some
of the articles, and stating our views as to the further points for which provision must
be made ; the despatch might terminate with a copy of the Memorandum or “ Basis of
an Understanding ” containing the modifications which we think necessary. The
despatch would conclude with an invitation to the Egyptian Government to send the
promised delegation to England to draw up the proposed treaty in the early spring.
The despatch with its enclosures could then be published simultaneously in England
and Egypt. But in the meantime we could telegraph to Lord Allenby the modifications
on which we are disposed to insist, and obtain his opinion upon them before finally
incorporating them in our draft. QUEZON OF KEDLESTON.
January 1, 1921.