Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎207r] (416/473)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
EGYPT AND SOUDAN
[ April ^G.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
[E 4919/260/161 No. 1 .
Field-Marshal Viscount Allenhy to Karl Curzon.—(Received April 26.)
(No. 311.)
My Lord, Cairo, April 16, 1921.
FROM statements which have been published in certain sections of the British
press it would appear that there is a large and influential party in England who are
opposed to a settlement of the Egyptian question on the lines advocated by Lord
Milner, and which will lose no opportunity of bringing pressure to bear on His
Majesty’s Government to withdraw from the position taken up by Lord Milner, with
a view to maintaining British control over Egyptian affairs on a footing more or less
similar to that which had prevailed during the thirty-nine years of the British
occupation. At the same time there has existed, and indeed still exists, the possibility
that the Egyptians themselves, by supporting the extreme demands hitherto
advocated by Zaghlul Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , would render any acceptance of the basis for discussion
of Lord Milner's proposal suggested by His Majesty's Government impossible, and
thereby prevent negotiations from taking place between an official Egyptian delega
tion and the British Government which it is the object.of the latter to bring about.
The existence of these two factors make it in my opinion necessary to consider
the possibilities for British policy if, on the one hand, the section of British public
opinion to which I have referred were strong enough to enforce even at the eleventh
hour the rejection of the policy advocated by Lord Milner, or on the other, if the
Egyptian extremists carried the day and made immediate negotiations with His
Majesty's Government impossible. In either event it would be necessary .for His
Majesty's Government to find some alternative policy to meet the situation which
would be created. It has been suggested in many quarters that such an alternative
policy lay readv to hand in the adoption of measures which would enlist the
sympathies of the fellaheen Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. ; making it possible for His Majesty's Government to
i ely on the support of this class of the population for a return to a system of govern
ment similar to that which prevailed during the many years Lord Cromer was in
•^SypC ^ ishing to examine how far any truth lay in this suggestion, I requested
Mr. Amos, the judicial adviser to the Egyptian Government, and Mr. Patterson, the
adviser to the Ministry of Interior, both of whom are exceptionally well qualified
from their long and close knowledge of Egypt and of the Egyptian question to
furnish me with the expression of their views.
1 enclose copies of the memoranda they have prepared for me.
Your Lordship will observe that both writers dismiss the idea that, in the present
state of opinion in Egypt, there are any measures which we could take of such a
nature as to render possible a return to a system of government approximating to that
which existed in Lord Cromer’s time. Though it may be to some extent true that
discontent prevails among the agricultural and working class population of Egypt
as regards the distribution of land and the powers of the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. and land owning
classes, it would be fallacious and dangerous for His Majesty's Government to draw
the conclusion that they could exploit this discontent in the direction of securing
suppoi t for a reconstituted Cromer regime. Western ideas of autonomy and self-
government, not to speak of independence, to which the great war gave so consider
able an impetus, have gained too strong a hold on all sections of the community in
Egypt for it to be possible for us to return to old-time methods, or to look to the
administrative devices employed by Lord Cromer for precedents, to guide us in our
future action. The influence of such leaders as Zaghlul has entered too deeply into
the imagination of the people of Egypt to render any such solution of the problem
possible. r
The conclusion to be drawn from the memoranda submitted by Mr. Amos and
Mr. Patterson is that we stand committed to the general principles of the policy
initiated by Lord Milner, and that His Majesty's Government must bring that policy
to its logical conclusion. I am broadly in agreement with the views set forth in their
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