Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-03-14
EGYPT DEMANDS FREEDOM
British Rule is Now Near the
End.
QUESTION is jKoW PRESSING HARD

|
y Turkish Claims Thrown off During
World War-Leaders of Ancient Ma
: ton Willing to Allow British to Con
:. troll Canal, But Nothing Further.
w. p. Crozier in Dearborn Independ-
ent.
Ireland becomes a Free State; In
India the ferment grows; in Egypt il
, has boiled over and settled down again
, for the time, with Zaghlul Pasha the
Nationalist leader, and five Of his
principal lieutenants prisoners on q
British warship bound for exile In
Ceylon. The demand Of Egypt for
> complete freedom is a simpler thing
than that of the Hindu Moslem lead
er in India. They are a medley o:
races and religions; they are divided
. into two main sections which from
ancient times have been at each
others throat whenever q strong con-
trolling hand was withdrawn; and
, from ancient times, unless a protec-
tor were at hand, they have been the
, prey of enemies pouring down into the
plains of India from the mountains of
the northwest. But Egypt is a nation,
lying compact in its river valley with
it's fourteen million inhabitants, and
until Europe stepped in some 40 years
! ago it enjoyed powers of self-govern-
ment that were only limited by the
shadowy suzerainty Of the Sultan of
Turkey.
Neither England nor any other Eu-
ropean power had any legal right to be
master in Egypt. But Europe had
great financial interests In Egypt,
net to mention the Suez canal, and the
Egyptian government was weak and
corrupt, inviting Intervention. Eng
land went in and established herself,
very much to the benefit in mater
ial sense, of the Egyptians, who have
had the, for them, unknown exper-
ience of the honest, upright govern
ment to which Theodore Roosevelt
bore outspoken testimony during his
famous tour in the Old World. But
although an English agent like Lord
Cromer was not only ruler but auto
crat in Egypt, he was in theory only
4 an agent on the same level as the
agents of France or Italy. Only, he had
troops and ships behind him. (France,
to whom British predominanee In
Egypt was most bitter grievance,
only patched up the feud in 1914, when
England gave her quid pro quo in
Morocco).
With the Great War, England de-
clared the suzerainty of the Sultan Of
Turkey abolished. Egypt became a
British protectorate by British pro-
clamation. The Suez Canal was the
great highway for the transport of
troops to and from the East Egypt
furnished great labor corps for use
in the Sinai and Palestine campaigns.
When at last the war was over, Egypt
was moved by the same breath of free
dom which blew through all the world.
She had heard so much about the
principles for which the western pow
ers had fought the war; she expected
some Of them to be translated into
fact. In particular, her spokesmen
said that the protectorate had been an
emergency measure of the war, that
it should be forthwith abolished and
Egypt's sovereignty restored. In 1919
there was rebellion-due to many
causes, besides political grievances
and then the British government took
action. 1t is unfortunately true that
imperial governments rarely do take
action to extend the bounds OF free
dom until an outbreak Of violence has
forced their hands. (Witness the Irish
Free StateD The British government
sent out Lord Miner to inquire how
the demand Of the Egyptian nation for
its freedom could be fulfilled without
undue injury to foreign interests
It should be remembered that there
are other foreign interests OF great
magnitude in Egypt besides the Brit
lSn-TOldDly rIeiiSHj iteiiihh "Ao
Greek. The British government has
always been troubled by the thought
that if it moved out of Egypt and the
Egyptian government failed to keep
peace and order (Which is not at all
unlikely, another power might sud-
denly step in with military force. So
do they trust each other in the Old
World.
Lord Milner reported, the British
government refused to accept his rec
concentrations in important respects
and made its own proposals to the
Egyptian delegation headed by ABLY
Pasha, the prime minister. These the
Egyptian rejected and the whole ma
ton, including both the moderates
under ABLY and the extreme wing un-
der Zaghlul now stands united in the
demand for genuine independence.
Lord Allenby at the first sign of dis
order, applied the firm hand" of
military rule-a reinforced garrison,
warships up the Nile, arrests, depor-
tations, threats to disperse unlawful
assemblies by bombs from airplanes.
Now let us sec what really Is at ISSUE
r.