Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎205v] (413/473)

an agreement on moderate terms in England, they would be repudiated when they got
out here.
1 asked His Highness what lie thought would follow the breakdown of such
negotiations, and he replied that undoubtedly there would be trouble, but that the
right course in that event would be for the British Government to state absolutely
what it was prepared to give in the way of liberal reforms; to govern with a firm hand,
using martial law and having sufficient troops on the spot, and then to carry into effect
under these conditions the principal measures of reform we intended to give. Do this
bit by bit without ostentation for six or seven months and watch the" effect of each
concession very carefully, so that at the end of that period we should be able to say :
“ We have done all that we undertook to do. We are not talking about it: it is
actually done. 1 hat is all, and there is no more to come. That is how matters stand
for the present.” His Highness was very insistent upon the need of a policy or
progiamme, he called it, from the British Government. Programme and
confidence,” he repeated several times, “ were the watchwords. Let the Government
tell me and the High Commissioner what they want done, and let them give us a fair
chance to carry it out in our own way. How could the British Government, or
individual Members of Parliament who had been a few months in Egypt during the
war as young soldiers, understand Egyptian politics as well as he, who, as Prince Fuad,
had lived in the middle of it all for twenty years and knew all the personalities and
intrigues ?”
He evidently thought that his task had been rendered much more difficult by the
recent handling of this question from London. It was not possible for him to say to
his countrymen : “ Remain slaves ; cease to agitate for liberty.” On the other hand,
he regarded the demands put forward as absolutely impossible. He seemed greatly to
regret the advent of the Adiy Ministry, which he anticipated would either collapse or
be dominated completely by the extremists.
Altogether the Sultan made a good impression upon me. His views about men
and affairs were expressed with much pith and point, and his description of the practical
difficulties in which he was placed by the Milner-Zagloul agitation would impress
anyone who heard it. I am quite sure that if he had been able to make to the Cabinet
the statement which he made to me my colleagues would have been very much
impressed. This movement in Lgypt at the present time is very largely run by the
Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. class, who have accumulated enormous wealth without being in any way subject
to taxation on modern lines. They are now ambitious of getting the whole country in
their hands and re-establishing a reactionary regime. These men are of course well
known personally to the Sultan, and I expect he is capable of forming a very shrewd
opinion of them.
It is quite impossible to stay even a short time in Egypt without feeling how
gravely our interests have been prejudiced by the Milner Report, and by the lack of
any policy in regard to it, into which we have been forced by its premature exposure.
Ihe agitation is fed on false hopes from day to day, and the belief grows in their breasts
that they have only to push hard and keep on pushing for the British Government
to surrender to their demands. As I have no doubt whatever that we shall not
surrender to their demands, it is clear that a very unpleasant and abrupt shock lies
ahead ; and certainly we shall have ourselves created a greater pare of the difficulties
with which we are confronted
W. S. C.
March 22, 1921.