Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎186r] (374/473)

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which we shall presently refer at greater length, we acquiesced in a claim on the part
of the Egyptians which we were at first disposed to resist, because we were assured
that the admission of that claim would do more than anything else to gratify popular
sentiment in Egypt. This concession seemed to us not too high a price to pay if it
secured the cordial acceptance of the scheme as a whole by the Egyptian people.
Moreover, we were bound to recognise that the delegates also were ready to give up
a good deal of what they had originally demanded, in their anxiety to come to a good
understanding with the Mission.
The compromise thus reached was one which commended itself to us on its merits
subject to one essential condition. That condition was that Zaghlul and his associ
ates would undertake to use all their influence to obtain its acceptance by the people
of Egypt, and ultimately to get a Treaty giving effect to it approved by an Egyptian
Popular Assembly. This, as it seemed to us, was no more than we had a right to ask
of them. We could not, indeed, expect them to promise that their efforts would be
successful, any more than we could ourselves promise that our advice would be
approved by the British Government and the British people. What we did demand
was that they should commit themselves to supporting wholeheartedly the result of
our joint efforts. For unless they did this, it was too much to hope that the settlement
would be rightly understood, much less cordially welcomed, in Egypt. Yet it would
be idle for us, if we could not cherish that hope, to recommend it ourselves as a
solution of the Egyptian problem. The British people, we believed, would be quite
willing to accord very generous terms to Egypt, but only if they were convinced that
those terms would be gratefully accepted and would lead to permanently improved
relations and hearty co-operation between them and the Egyptians in the future.
Zaghlul Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. and his friends were, however, not yet prepared to commit them
selves to this extent. They were evidently stiff nervous of being repudiated by a
considerable number of their followers in Egyfvt. They accordingly kept on suggest
ing further modifications of the terms so far agreed to, mainly on points of form,
with the view of making them more acceptable to Egyptian opinion. But we had
now gone as far as we deemed wise in the way of concession. For we, too, as we did
not fail to point out, had to reckon with public opinion, and it was no use to agree to
anything, with a view of pleasing the Egyptians, which would lead to the rejection
of the whole scheme in Great Britain. We seemed, therefore, after all, to have
reached an impasse.
B .—The Memorandum of August 18, 1920.
At this stage, however, it was suggested on the Egyptian side that the discussion
should be temporarily suspended, in order that some members of the Delegation might
have time to visit Egypt, to explain to the public of that country the nature of the
settlement which the Mission was disposed to recommend, and the great advantages
which Egypt would derive from it. If, as they hoped, they met with a favourable
reception, this would constitute a "■ mandate from the people which would justify
the Delegation, on the return of the emissaries, in pledging itself to give our proposals
an unconditional support. Zaghlul Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. himself was not disposed to undertake
the journey, but he approved of the idea, and three or four of his companions were
willing to go.
^ This proposal had obvious advantages from the Egyptian point of view. For
it would enable the emissaries to advocate the acceptance of certain terms without
being absolutely committed to them, and thus running the risk of finding themselves
isolated from the bulk of their party in case those terms met with an unfavourable
reception. But it had advantages for us also, inasmuch as the general public dis
cussion, which was bound to ensue, would enable us to gauge Egyptian opinion more
completely than had yet been possible, and to judge of the comparative strength of
moderate and extreme Nationalists. A memorandum was accordingly drawn up—
the last of a series of efforts to reduce the result of our discussions to a definite shape
—which laid down in general terms the main features of the settlement, which, on
the condition already specified, the Mission would be disposed to recommend. The
object of the memorandum was to enable the emissaries to elicit an expression of
Egyptian public opinion. This document, which presently came to be known as the
" Milner-Zaghlul Agreement,” but which, on the face of it, was not an agreement,
but merely an outline of the bases on which an agreement might subsequently be
framed, was handed by Lord Milner to Adli Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , who, as an intermediary between
the two parties, had had a large share in all our negotiations, to be communicated by