Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-03

hl6OlNG- "A genuine
movement to reclaim Egypt for the
Egyptians might dispose of Abbas II
as effectually as of the British con-
sui generals overlordship.
Before the present Turkish dynasty
ruled in Egypt the power of govern
ment was in the hands of the Name
lukes, descendants of the Circassian
slaves of the earlier sultans, Those
sultans were Osmali Turks and they
had been preceded by Arabian sui
tans and caliphs. Before the Arabians
there came the Byzantine rulers. be-
fore them Roman rule. and the Ptole-
mics and the Greek ascendancy. 1t
has been twenty-five centuries since
an Egyptian ruled over Egypt. The
British government has declared re-
peatedly during the last twenty-five
years that it is endeavoring to pre-
pare the Egyptians for self govern
ment. If that declaration is false, as
the Egyptian patriots assert, it still
must be admitted that the English have
done more to bring the native and
ancestral Egyptian to a relaxing sense
OF civic liberty than all that had been
done in the twenty-five hundred years
before the British occupation.
There hasn't been a day since the
British soldiers marched into Cairo
that some patriot has not denounced
party has had a more or less inchoate
existence during nearly all of that
time. Newspapers printed in Arabic,
English and French abuse the British
rule almost without limitation It Is
the British policy to permit the mall
contents to let off steam in that man.
ner. Yet the only real organization
and genuine movement for national
autonomy was led by Moustafa Kamel
Pasha, who died little more than a
year ago at the early age of "a years.
With his death the movement was ar
rested, the party divided into as many
cnqueS as there were men ambitious to
MI Moustafa's shoes. The consultative
assembly. sort of parliament, boldly
demanded freedom while Moustafa
lived, but now 1t is silent The defen-
ders oaf the British regime point to this
fact as proof that Egypt is not ready
to take up the task of self-government.
arguing that a party that depended
solely upon the life Of one man could
not be expected to administer a ma
TONS affairs with safety.
Moustafa Kamel Pasha entered poll
ties when he was Fl years old, and until
the day of his death in February, 1908,
ne was the central figure of the anti
British agitation in Egypt. For the
first several years of his mission he re-
lied almost implicitly upon the French
as the future deliverers of his country.
Like most Egyptians of wealth and
position, he had been educated in
France, he looked upon French civiliza-
ton as the highest type Of Occidental
culture, and he could neither under
stand nor tolerate the cold logic of the
Anglo-Saxon. The stern reasoning of
the British people which has gained
them full measure of personal liberty
while retaining the forms of ancient
absolutism did not appeal to Moustafa.
He chose rather the volatile French
man who has always preferred the
forms of perfect liberty, regardless of
the actual tyranny imposed under those
forms. The traditional French hatred
of England, the continual protests from
the French foreign office against the
British occupation of Egypt, the en-
couragement given the Egyptian Ma
tionalist cause by French journalists
and literary men-ali these things led
Moustafa to identify Egyptian liberty
and French interest as one cause.
Moustafa established a newspaper,
Al Lewa, which almost Immediately
became the leading journal of Islem, a
position which it still occupies. French
and English editions of this journal
soon followed, and the influence of the
tri-lingual newspaper organ of the
Nationalist cause was marked. The
young leader maintained very close re-
lations with the khedive and was given
the title of ''pasha" from the Sublime
PORTE At his instance the khediVe in