Evening star., 1924-12-07

Oh an increase as experience and
education justified the extension. To
India there has been held out the
promise of the status of Canada and
Australia-that is, of a self-governing
dominion at the end of a period of
years.
AS for Egypt, after very brief
period of actual protectorate follow
ing upon the outbreak of the World
War. there has been an even more
rapid devolution. Egypt was recog
nized as an Independent state, save
in it's foreign relations, while recog
nizing the British right to defend
the Suez Canal and to maintain its
rather complicated title in the Sudan.
And the same prospect was held out
to the newly acquired mandate of
Iraq.
Britain Made Concessions.
The British, then the oldest and
wisest colonial nation in the world,
having in mind alike the past his
tory of Europe and the rising prob
lens OF Asia, sought to anticipate
struggle by concession. In India and
in Egypt, British record was brilliant
beyond all gainsaying on the mate
rial side, both countries had been
raised from anarchy and misery to
the conditions of relative prosperity
and absolute security and order by
British administration.
More than that 1t was, and it re-
mains, true that if one could fancy
a rapid and forced withdrawal OF
British rule from India or Egypt, the
result would inevitably be the decay
OF the material prosperity which has
accompanied British administration.
Not only would che vast investments
of British capital be wrecked, but the
very economic life of the people would
suffer. Such within limits has been
the history of the effect of the partial
withdrawal in Egypt.
You have then the striking paradox,
the subject peoples of Asia and Afri-
ca are. with everincreasing empha-
sis, demanding 1.-The withdrawal of
their European governors, yet this
withdrawal, beyond debate, involves
decline, if not a destruction, of ma
terial prosperity. The nation which
is asked to evacuate knows that not
only will it suffer a loss in prestige
and power, the sacrifice of the fruits
of it's labors and its Investments, but
the immediate consequence of its
evacuation will be the partial, if not
complete, ruin Of the prosperity and
the order it has created. And the
same state of facts is discoverable |
in our own Philippines.
No Chance to Withdraw.
One might conceive that Britain in |
India, America in the Philippines |
would consent to withdraw, were it !
plain that withdrawal would mean no |
more than the transfer to efficient |
native hands, trained to the task, of |
all work of administration and to ma |
tive legislature the complicated bust |
ness of self-government. Certainly !
the transfer might seem more toler- !
able than the alternative struggle !
to remain. but there is no such alter !
native, not in India, not in Egypt, not |
in the Philippines.
Nevertheless, in the end one comes i
to the present question: Is it possible /
permanently to stay, and stay in any
condition of peace? The old theory |
of the white mans burden has broken
down in SO far as the native popula-
tions are concerned The contract,
to be sure, only written by the
trustee, the contract by the terms of
which European rule in native states
found it's warrant in the benefits
the conditions in which
the native populations were in some
measure the wards of the occupying
nation, is ruptured by the fact that
the native populations, the wards,
while very far still from reaching
actual maturity, believe themselves to
nave reached the stage of maturity
administration of their own affairs.
Administrators Are Hated.
So far from being grateful to their
masters for the benefits bestowed,
cal benefits which cannot be gain
said. the new generations which are
coming on, with no personal knowl-
edge of the fashion in which their
ancestors misgoverned, look upon the
present alien administrators with all
he passion which the Italians felt
'or the Austrians in Milan and Venice
.wo generations ago. And their
answer to the foreigner is also the
Knife and the bomb, since they can
lot yet raise armies and make war.
1t would be hard to imagine more
complete exposure of all the phases
If the new problem than one now sees
set forth in Egypt The story of
British administration in Egypt on
he material side is one which COM
oares with the achievements of Rome
n the colonial acknowledgements
never surpassed and rarely ap-
preached. You have had there in a
narrow field foreign domination at its
highest and best level. If one could
contrast the Egypt of four decades
ago, the Egypt of Arab Pasha, with
the Egypt of today, or the Sudan of
the Mahdi with that of the present
it would seem that no mind,
native or otherwise, could fail to
realize the difference.
Rule Has Been Honorable.
Concede that there has been no
altruism in the British
that the costs have
been born by the native and the ad-
nation has taken its
profit as a reward for its interven-
tion, yet it Is hard to escape the
conclusion that British rule in Egypt
has been honorable for the rulers and
everlastingly profitable for the ad-
And the same is equally
true so far as India is concerned
Yet against this stands the fact
that in both cases that minority of
the native population which has
already achieved education, inevitably
the members of the old ruling orders
and classes, with an everincreasing
passion demands that 1t be per-
mitted to be master in its own house.
1t may be true that this class Is small
and that the millions of still unedu-
Gated masses. who would suffer by
A change and who might return to
ancient slavery and misery, have no
voice and no capacity to grasp the
situation. Yet blindly, ignorantly, but
they are tending to fol-
low their own leaders, while the
element of religion, particularly
wherever Islam is in the picture,
adds fanaticism to renascent patriot
ism.
1t will certainly be a generation