The New York herald., 1873-05-13

achieved in the East While the path OF
empire takes it's way to the West the hidden,
romantic, antique lands in which were born
terest even to peaceful, busy Americans, who
according to the Pope, are too assiduous in
making money to always remember it as the
root of all evil We have had an Eastern
question in European politics ever since Eu-
rope was a civilized continent. 1t perplexed
the Romans; it attracted the genius and the
courage of Alexander; it gave inspiration to
the visions and laws of Islam; it animated
Napoleon in his invasion of Egypt, and came
to him as rapturous and not impossible dream
when he was an exile in Elba The Third
Napoleon brooded over it and made war
against Russia to solve it. In America we
have an Eastern question that in our chill
dren's time, perhaps even in our own, will be-
come as momentous as slavery and free trade;
so that no matter how rapidly or distantly
our American Commonwealth advances in our
mission of enlightenment, it does not seem
possible to dissever our national policy from
Eastern questions, which threaten to affect us
as keenly as they do England and France.
| Whoever commanded the Bosphorus was
master of the world. This was one legend Of
the Napoleonic times Whoever held Egypt
had the road to India This was another
legend of the great Emperor, and was fully
shared by even as practical man as Palmer
ston. It was under the Pyramids that Napo-
leon made the first grapple in that long war
against England, which terminated at Water
loo; and when he fell English policy, as in
spired by Palmerston, was devoted to
the aggrandizement Of British power in
Egypt. We can understand how the
effect of these struggles for the supremacy
of the Nile would have ended in the efface-
ment Of Egypt except as q mere province OF
the Turk That land, rich and mighty be-
fore the time of Jesus or David or Moses,
with civilization and history running back
to the earliest days in the earliest ages,
seemed to have fallen upon fate like that
which efaced Troy and Carthage and Baby
Ion. The Egypt of Sesostris and the
Pharaohs was only name, and the
puny Mussulman was master OF ruins
and deserts where once had reigned
mighty race of men. And philosophers
said that even as upon men there comes the
evening after the noon, and decay and palsy
| and death after vigorous, beaming sunny
manhood. so to nations, no matter how great
and aspiring, there will come desolation.
But all this time, as if to show how Gods
benefcence Knocked the theories of the philos-
ophers, the sun shone upon Egypt as brightly
as when Joseph gathered its corn, and
the great river kept its mysterious
life-giving and ife-renewing way-carrying
fertility into the desert and bringing the har-
vests on its full Spring tides. Instead Of death
and extinction new vigor came to the vener-
able land, and in this last generation we have
had the spectacle of nation rising with new
life from the earth which threatened to en-
tomb it, and showing signs of its former su-
premacy and splendor.
This spectacle which is of course familiar
to our readers, indicates what the genius of
man like the Khedive can achieve in spite of
adverse circumstances Twenty years ago if
the world had been told that the day was
coming when an Egyptian prince would have
honor and consideration not only in the
courts but in the money markets of Europe,
it would have listened as incredulously as if it
were said to-day that an Aztec prince was
about to revive the empire of the Montezumas,
or that a new Inca was about to
! restore the barbaric splendor of Peru.
Yet what Egypt is its ruler has made it. By
his enterprise and craftsmanship we have the
Suez Canal, next to the Atlantic cable the
most important work of the age. This is one
Of succession of achievements upon which
it is not necessary to dwell. Let it be
sufficient that Egypt, which, in the last gen.
Grafton, had no more influence in Europe than
Arizona or Sonora, is now the centre of an
Eastern question as important as any phase
that problem has ever assumed. We in
America are called upon to say whether our
influence will be given in favor of the past or
the future; whether we shall assist an en-
lightened and courageous prince, whose friend
ship for Americans has always marked his
reign, to win and hold his sovereignty, or
whether we shall unite with those selfish
Powers who would make Egypt as Car
thage. Happily, it is not ques-
more important than many which have
resulted in war;
The Khedive proposes to institute what
are known as judicial reforms in his domin-
ions. There have been scandals in JUS
tice surprising any in New York, how
ever extravagant it may seem. These scan
dals came from treaty system, by which
foreign consuls are permitted independent
and irresponsible judicial power over their
own citizens and over all matters in which
their citizens are concerned. So justice has
been destroyed by the alien in the dominions
| Of tho bod iro R,,t 4haA aolas.