Report of the Special Mission to Egypt under Lord Milner, and related papers [‎229v] (461/473)

2
It is an awful confession of failure to throw up in a day the responsibilities we have
accumulated and borne for forty years, but experience seems to show that we are not
temperamentally fitted to govern Egypt by the methods of compromise so dear to the
Anglo-Saxon heart. The one fatal policy is to deport people like Zaghlul one day
and be obliged to give them a free run the next because we have not the determina
tion or sufficient troops to follow up a drastic policy. If we decide for (2), we should
do so before Adly leaves London and not wait to be forced into it by Zaghlul. The
Capitulations would presumably remain indefinitely in order to afford our subjects
and foreigners the minimum protection that would be indispensable. The Egyptians
are susceptible of foreign criticism and will be more so under the responsibilities of
independence, and our fears for the personal safety of foreigners might prove
groundless. But we should reserve our exclusive right to come into Egypt again
if our fears should be realised.
We are under engagements to Sultan Fuad taken when we were the protecting
Power. We should have to explain to him that it had proved impossible to maintain
the protectorate, and that in the altered circumstances we could not guarantee his
throne. If he elected to remain as Sultan, he would have to do so on his own
responsibility. If he preferred to go we would guarantee him an income of, say,
50,000/., or whatever sum might be considered suitable.
You may possibly have thought of all this. It is the result mainly of discus
sions with Clay ten and Selby, and l have thought it worth while sending it to you.
It is easier to put it in the form of a private letter rather than a despatch, especially
as it is written late at night and the bag goes to-morrow.
Yours sincerely,
ERNEST SCOTT.