VOTE OF CENSURE.

HC Deb 15 February 1884 vol 284 cc1025-114

[ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [THIRD NIGHT.]

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [12th February], That this House, having read and considered the Correspondence relating to Egypt, laid upon the Table by Her Majesty's Command, is of opinion that the recent lamentable events in the Soudan are due, in a great measure, to the vacillating and inconsistent policy pursued by Her Majesty's Government."—(Sir Stafford Northcote.) And which Amendment was, To leave out from the word "House" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "whilst declining at present to express an opinion on the Egyptian policy which Her Majesty's Government have pursued during the last two years, with the support of the House, trusts that in future British Forces may not be "employed for the purpose of interfering with the Egyptian people in the selection of their own Government,"—(Sir Wilfrid Lawson,)

—instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

said, he wished rather to extend the considerations that had been raised in the debate. The Prime Minister told them, on Tuesday, that he thought this ought to be a great historical discussion, developing great and important lessons, and marking a definite issue between the two political Parties. The question whether Sinkat could have been saved, or whether Hicks Pasha should have been allowed to go to the Soudan, was one upon which most of them must have made up their minds. The powerful attack made by the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) on the Government, and, as he ventured to think, the still more powerful reply of the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke), brought before the House pretty nearly all the points that affected this particular question; nor did he think that the rather vigorous interrogatories put by the right hon. Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) constituted any serious refutation to that speech. What the right hon. Gentleman did was to remove from those sitting on the Bench the reproach of no longer having a policy. For he began his speech by saying—"No one wants to annex Egypt," and he, unfortunately, concluded by saying— We are now the governors of Egypt; we mean to rule Egypt; and you must let Egypt and the world know that it is we who are its rulers, and that we mean to be obeyed. Talk about vacillation and inconsistency! He thought inconsistency between the first proposition and the closing one was as glaring as could be imagined.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

I beg the hon. Member's pardon; but if he will read the next paragraph of my speech, he will find that I said the sooner that is done the sooner we shall be able to hand the Government of Egypt back to the Egyptians.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

admitted that he had not caught that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech; but submitted that, according to any English dictionary, to annex meant to make themselves the rulers of a country. Whatever it might mean in the English dictionary, foreign politicians, when they read the announcement in French, German, Italian, or Russian, would assume that that definition was a correct one. So far as the Soudan itself was concerned, he had little to say. No one, in the course of the debate, said a single word in favour of the retention of the Soudan by the Government of Egypt; but before that debate, and, he suspected, after the debate, and when the Election time came, and hon. Gentlemen opposite were bringing an indictment against the present Government, he had no doubt they would hear it said that, in counselling the Egyptian Government to give up the Soudan, Her Majesty's Government had been, in fact, sanctioning the renewal of the Slave Trade. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman said "Hear, hear!" But he would ask him whether the atrocities of the Slave Trade were one atom worse than the conscription of the Egyptian fellaheen which was required to put it down? If a visitant from another sphere or a foreign country were to see the gangs of Egyptian conscripts being driven by the lash, with irons on their limbs, and being torn from their vil- lages, their homes, and their families, and were told that all this was a work of mercy to please English philanthropists, he would be considerably perplexed. He confessed that the attack made on the Government by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford did not surprise him; but, at the same time, he could not help feeling that the weightiness with which he enforced his arguments was rather affected by the recollection that, just as now he was in favour of adopting a policy of a strong Government in Egypt, so in 1877 he came to that House and told hon. Gentlemen that the annexation of the Transvaal was an absolute necessity. What the right hon. Gentleman then called an absolute necessity was very soon seen to be a positive impossibility. He was bound also to remark that the right hon. Gentleman and some of his allies were, to some extent, responsible for the expedition of the Egyptian Government to reconquer the Soudan; because in November, 1882, the right hon. Gentleman, with a deputation, waited on Lord Granville and asked for what purpose they were in Egypt at all, unless it were to put down domestic slavery and the Slave Trade? The Egyptian Government, no doubt, took note of that, and felt that there was an important Party in England urging the English Government to put down the Slave Trade in the Soudan. As a matter of fact, the attempt to put down the Slave Trade had been an absolute failure; and the Khedive himself told The Times'' Correspondent, three or four weeks ago—"I doubt whether, with our best endeavours, we have lessened the evil in all these years." He, therefore, hoped that, when the time came, this argument would not be used against the policy of the Government. Now, he had been asked by some friends how it was that persons like himself, who were formerly in favour of British intervention in Egypt, had since been in favour of the evacuation of it? His hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Cowen) had said that those who were responsible for intervention were responsible for all that had happened since; but, for his own part, he had only assented to the policy of going into Egypt because he expected we should come out of it. It was distinctly stated, over and over again, that the English expedition was destined to put down a military rebellion. Though he held the doctrine of non-intervention, he held it in a practical form; and he did conceive how Her Majesty's Government could at that time have repudiated all the obligations and engagements into which their Predecessors had entered. Moreover, they were bound to admit, and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were entitled to all the benefit of the admission, that the arrangements they made were at that time working extremely well, and that Her Majesty's Government would have undertaken a serious responsibility if they had at that time disturbed it or allowed its works to fall into disrepair. Although the evacuation of the Soudan was a strong point of the Government case, he was free to admit that he did not think it would make either the evacuation of Egypt by the British troops easier, or the work of the British Government easier, whether before or after the withdrawal. The argument put forward by Cherif, and endorsed by Sir Edward Baring, was that, first of all, the evacuation of the Soudan would weaken the authority of the Khedive; second, it would expose the people of Egypt Proper to inroads from Bedouin Tribes and other hordes; and, third, they would have to keep a larger force to defend the proposed Frontier. The necessity of a large army involved a large expenditure; therefore, by the evacuation of the Soudan—necessary as it was—they had undoubtedly strengthened the two great causes of instability in the Egyptian Government—namely, the expenditure, and the possibility of attacks from the mutinous forces. These were the circumstances which induced Cherif, among others, to decline, after so enormous a change, to be any longer responsible for the Government of Egypt under such conditions. The question now was, how was the English Government going to face the new condition of things? He objected to the word "inconsistency;" but after the fatal Note from Lord Granville, of the 4th of January, he could not deny, if there had not been inconsistency, there had certainly been miscalculation. But right hon. Gentlemen opposite would not attach too much importance to miscalculation when they remembered that the Anglo-Turkish Convention committed this country to many responsibi- lities of which they immediately freed themselves after they had gained their object in Cyprus. He should be glad if Her Majesty's Government could give the House some more definite statement of the means by which their policy would be carried out, because their policy, as he understood, was not very much removed from that of the hon. Baronet who moved the Amendment. As the Prime Minister said, the Amendment took too narrow a point, for it would not answer the purpose of his hon. Friend to say that English troops were not to be used for the purpose of preventing the Egyptian people choosing their own Government. There was much more to be done than that, and a much wider field to cover. As to what the Government proposed to do in the future, the Prime Minister comforted him greatly when he said that they did not aim at a very perfect structure of Government in Egypt, but would be content with the primary elements of Government. He presumed the primary elements of Government would not include the constitutions described in Lord Dufferin's despatch. Admirable as was that despatch, it belonged rather to literature than to politics. It was like the scheme of an architect who drew a spacious ground plan and a glittering elevation, but left out the foundation and forgot to estimate the cost. He did not believe that Egypt was fit for the structure that Lord Dufferin had sketched. He thought the Government would be content with something very far short of that intricate and highly developed system. He might say that he regarded, with considerable disapproval, the plan of drafting a number of Anglo-Indian administrators into Egypt. He did not believe that in Ireland or anywhere else was it sufficient to turn loose a little host of Anglo-Indian bureaucrats. He did not think that Mr. Clifford Lloyd was so successful in bringing about peace in Ireland that they should expect him to bring either peace, order, or good government to Egypt. If Englishmen waited until there was in Egypt such a structure of Government and of administration as would satisfy themselves, they would play the rusticus expectans, the simpleton waiting until the water in the river had all flowed out. As to judicial reforms, they were aiming a great deal too high. They could not forgot that in the Deccan, where they set up so elaborate a set of tribunals and judicial institutions, this policy, in a very few years, was so disastrous to the cultivators of the soil, that at this moment they had to pull down the whole fabric, and were engaged in once more restoring to the people the simpler usages and customs to which they had been habituated. He would like to read to the House a few words by an authority whom all would respect. General Gordon himself, when he was in the Soudan in 1877, said that— The best way in dealing with Oriental peoples is to leave them alone, and not to be philanthropic to those who do not need it and do not want it, A good Governor would, if he would succeed in raising the people, not rush into the reforms of ancient usages, however righteous or beneficial they may seem to him. The other day, in Calcutta, there was an exhibition of steam implements. Some of the best examples were sent over, and they all worked admirably; but the report said, it might he doubted whether these ploughs were not too expensive and complicated for Indian requirements. He thought that was true of most of the innovations which they were engaged in introducing into Egypt. But what was the real crux and pinch of this question? Everyone told the House, from Lord Dufferin down to Mr. Wallace, that Egypt was on the eve of a formidable economical crisis; that this crisis could only be staved off by developing her economic resources; and that her economic resources could not possibly be developed so long as the country was burdened with the Law of Liquidation. Nothing could be done until that law underwent great modification. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) told them that Prance was looking forward to England proposing a modification of this law, and why? In order, said the right hon. Gentleman, that she might refuse it. Then they were in this position—that they could not procure the one measure of relief that was more important than all the others; and that, meanwhile, they were in the truly odious position of bailiffs in possession, to enforce a claim which, they admitted, it was harsh and unreasonable to expect the creditor to pay. It was idle to attempt to reform Egyptian administration without touching Egyptian finance. They could not touch Egyptian finance without the consent of Europe, and especially the consent of France. He thought this was one of the considerations which was very much left out of sight in the discussions in the Press and in the House. Hon. Gentlemen forgot that Her Majesty's Government were not masters of Egypt to do as they would. They had a very fair illustration of their impotence in the case of the Suez Canal. The moment the Government attempted to touch it they found they were not free, and the moment they attempted to touch Egyptian finance they would find that they could not stir a finger without the leave of Foreign Powers. The great argument for the withdrawal of the troops that had always been present to his mind was not a merely pacific or a merely economic one. His conviction was that the Khedive would be far better able to obtain a modification of the Law of Liquidation if the English troops were not in his country to excite the jealousy of foreign nations. The despatch of the 4th of January made it much more difficult than before to procure the assent of Prance and other Powers to the change which all admitted was essential. There were, he thought, two distinct occasions when the troops might have been withdrawn—the one before the outbreak of the cholera, and the second after the discussion in the House of Commons in August last, when Cherif Pasha wrote to Sir Evelyn Baring— The army and the gendarmerie are sufficiently organized. … to ensure the maintenance of order in Egypt; and. … of the feeling's shown by the Natives, and the absence for a twelve-month of any incident which could leave a doubt remaining as to their disposition, allow the Government of His Highness regarding the future with the greatest confidence."—[Egypt, No. 1 (1884), p. 8.] Whatever other way out of this difficulty there might be, he was at least sure that the worst way was that recommended by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir E. Assheton Cross). There were enormous difficulties in working out the policy of the Government—difficulties which it would be foolish to underrate or deny. If they left Egypt, no doubt, there was a chance of chaos; but if they remained there, it would be impossible, under those circumstances, for a Native Administration to grow up with strength and confidence in its own resources. Her Majesty's Government were on the horns of that dilemma; and if right hon. Gentlemen opposite came into Office tomorrow, they would find themselves in an equal difficulty. France was not the only Power that might be expected to regard the policy of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and our assumption of authority in Egypt, with exceeding distrust. There were certain very easily imaginable contingencies which would make the passage of the Canal for ships of war as important to Russia as it was to this country; and they might be sure that Russia would not look with equanimity upon our definite installation as masters of the banks of the Canal any more than France would, or than we would regard the installation of France in the same locality. The hon. Member for Greenwich (Baron Henry De Worms) was, in his view, very sensible in introducing into the debate references to these international elements; though he was not certain that hon. Gentlemen opposite, with their partiality for a certain solution of the Eastern Question, would accept the policy of the right hon. Gentleman any more than Members sitting on the Ministerial side of the House would be likely to do. He, for one, thought the solution of the Eastern Question was no great business of ours; but if he shared the opinions of many hon. Gentlemen opposite—the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett), for example—he should resist very stoutly anything resembling an English annexation of Egypt, for the reason that, as stated in a Berlin newspaper the other day— Among the moral consequences to other nations of an English annexation of Egypt would be that this additional encumbrance and weight would prevent England from obstructing the efforts of other civilized nations in their share of the still unreclaimed countries of the world. In plainer English, the words he had quoted meant that both by our example and by the accession of weakness caused by this most unblessed acquisition, Russia would be invited into Armenia and Asia Minor, and Austria into Salonica. He was amazed that the Party opposite should press for a line of action that would sooner or later— and sooner rather than later—revive the whole Eastern Question, and deprive England of any effective voice or part in its solution. He did not deny that they could govern Egypt as they governed India if it happened to be in India; but Egypt was, to all intents and purposes, not in India or Asia, but in Europe; it had an important European population; it had active European interests, with strong Governments at their back; and English administration in that country would inevitably bring them into contact and friction with those Governments whenever it suited the convenience of a Government or the caprice of an individual to provoke us or to harass our officers. This seemed to him to break down the analogy which the Prime Minister drew between government in Egypt and the government of the Native States in India. The analogy would only be complete if in Egypt they had, as in Hyderabad for instance, in the first place, a foreign European population, and if, in the second place, the country was surrounded by our strong Empire. These considerations made a most vital difference; but, at the same time, he admitted that such a system as existed in the Native Indian States contained features which they might well copy for Egypt.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, his argument on this point was that the case of the Indian Native Protected States was an argument against what it was proposed that England should do in Egypt.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

submitted that, however that might be, England was, geographically as well as politically, the very last nation that ought to be willing to occupy Egypt, because it would bring her alongside of many difficulties and dangers which she was at present free to regard with tolerable composure. Gibraltar and Malta did not make England a Mediterranean Power; but Egypt would do this, with the special disadvantage of being at a great distance from our base. Let them contrast the short distance from Toulon and Marseilles to Alexandria, with the remoteness of Portsmouth and Woolwich. So far from the annexation of Egypt being a triumph for us over Prance, it would be giving hostages to France; and upon the day, under whatever name and under whatever Government, when we took definite possession of Egypt, from that day we might bid farewell to the blessings and advantages of the "silver streak." It was not only our European frontier that would be thus undergoing a most dangerous and mischievous extension; we should, to all intents and purposes, bring India into the Mediterranean. It was often said that Spain was the beginning of Africa; but they might depend upon it that Egypt in English hands would be the beginning of India. Under the rule of a common master, Mohammedan interests in Egypt would unite with the Mohammedan interests in India; and the disastrous effect would be that we should be laying India open to all the forces and currents of the haute politique of Europe. He was always inclined to look at politics from the point of view of British interests; but he wished to distinguish British interests, British delusions, and Guildhall hallucinations. It was on the ground of British interests that he wished to protest against either deliberately steering, as hon. Gentlemen opposite would do, or involuntarily drifting, as right hon. Gentlemen on the Government side might do, into any prolonged responsibility for the government of Egypt. Supposing they did assume that responsibility, how many Questions, Motions, and Resolutions would they have about Egypt in the House of Commons in the course of a year? He asked the House to remember other difficulties that would arise from the annexation. Ireland was already one corroded link in the chain of the Empire, and a second would be added if Her Majesty's Government were unwise enough to seek another Ireland in the Mediterranean. If they entered definitely upon the course recommended by hon. Gentlemen opposite, it would not be long before they should have to send a much greater Army to Egypt, and then the British taxpayer would find that he was paying for that which did no good either to ourselves or to the people of the country most closely concerned. He read in some journals that there was a feeling of strong resentment against the Government for their chariness in taking action for the relief of the garrisons in the Soudan. He had taken some trouble to inquire, and so far as he could make out there was very little of the sort. There was resentment; but it was exactly in those quarters where there had been resentment against Her Majesty's Government for the last four years. He believed that North of the Trent, at any rate, the light which was kindled by the Prime Minister four years ago, still burned as strongly and as brightly as ever. He believed that though for the moment it might seem easier to undertake the administration of the Government of Egypt, yet that when people understood the cost that it would impose upon us—the moral, material, and political weakness that it would inflict upon this country—they would condemn any policy that led in that direction, and be very little disposed to forgive the authors of it, in whatever quarter of the House they might sit.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, that as he listened to the interesting speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, he was in great doubt as to whom it was directed against. That it was not relative either to the Motion before the House or to the Amendment, the hon. Gentleman, he was sure, would be the first to admit. As he understood him, the hon. Gentleman had pointed out the dangers attending annexation. But what Party in that House desired annexation? If the hon. Gentleman thought it dangerous that they should take upon themselves absolute power in Egypt, he would remind him that Her Majesty's Government had done that already; and if he deprecated any further action in that direction, then the reply was that no Party in that House had proposed to take it. The complaint of the Opposition against the Government was not that they had taken upon themselves insufficient responsibility, not that they had left too much to the Government of the Khedive; but that, having taken upon themselves responsibilities, having committed this country absolutely for the present to the duty of governing Egypt, they had failed to carry out their obligations. One of the remarkable peculiarities of the Liberal Party had been made apparent during the course of the debate, for every species of difference of opinion had been expressed on the other side of the House, and the only thing in which hon. Gentlemen sitting behind the Government were united was the determination to vote for Her Majesty's Ministers. The hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) thought that the Government had been wrong from the beginning, and even the hon. Gentleman who spoke last had very little to say in favour of the Government. The only point on which he expended a single word of praise was the action of the Government as to the evacuation of the Soudan. Then the hon. Gentleman spoke about the fatal Note of the 4th of January. That fatal Note was the solitary thing in the whole Government policy for the past eight months which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) and the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) found to admire. And yet all those hon. Gentlemen, divided as they were on every single important question connected with Egyptian politics, were all united in the determination to condemn Her Majesty's Government by their speeches and to absolve it by their votes. One consequence of this remarkable feature of the debate was that there had been literally only two speeches delivered in defence of the Government, and they had been made by Members of the Government. Hence he was compelled to confine his remarks in criticizing the action of Her Majesty's Ministers chiefly to the speeches he had mentioned. One aspect of the controversy was of great importance in the eyes of the Prime Minister and the President of the Local Government Board, and that was the argument, drawn from ancient history, which attributed to the action of the late Government the difficulties of the present Administration. The Prime Minister had referred to his own prophetic eloquence of 1876. But who was the rash Minister who determined to drag this country into foreign complications, and whose action in 1876 had been the parent of subsequent misfortune? That rash and reckless Foreign Minister was none other than the noble Lord who was at the present time the most cautious of the right hon. Gentleman's Colleagues. The noble Lord who then had the direction of the foreign policy of the Government was now the noble Lord who had given the best defence of the "scuttling out" policy of the Government. He could not reconcile the Government view with the view which the Prime Minister held—namely, that they got their mandate for interfering with the affairs of Egypt from the European Powers. If they were bound in honour, by the action of their Predecessors, to interfere, why did they demand the mandate of Europe? And if, on the other hand, they were not so bound, what was the value of the argument by which they wished to throw on their Predecessors the full blame for the present difficulties? Again, if it was from the mandate of Europe that the Government derived their authority, he should like to know on what ground they restricted their interference to what the Prime Minister was pleased to describe as Egypt Proper? Nobody, it had been said, now dared to assent that Egypt ought to remain in the Soudan. If this meant that no one advocated the reconquest of the Soudan, it might be true; if, however, it meant that all were agreed as to the expediency of originally abandoning the Soudan, it was certainly false. It was said that it would have cost too much, and that Egyptian officials would always have governed ill; but the replies to these arguments were that General Gordon governed the Soudan without spending a shilling, and that there was no necessity for employing Egyptian officials, seeing that at the present moment every office in Lower Egypt had a European connected with it. By giving up the Soudan they had burdened Egypt with an increased standing Army, with all its expenses and dangers; for it was evident, and was admitted by Sir Evelyn Baring, that a considerable military force would now be required to guard the frontier. The Government had recently come to the conclusion that the cause of liberty was best served by handing over the Soudanese to the tyranny of their own local Sultans; they had lately become aware of the horrors that attended enlistment in Egypt, which the hon. Gentleman who spoke last said exceeded the horrors of slavery. But if that were so, how could the Government justify themselves in allowing Egypt to attempt to reconquer the Soudan? If the enlistment was as bad as slavery, the Government had permitted a crime as atrocious as slavery. The Prime Minister and the President of the Local Government Board had but one excuse to make for what had occurred—namely, that the Government did not like to interfere before the defeat of Hicks's army, because had they interfered they would have hurt the feelings of the governing classes. When they went to Egypt to institute good government, did they go there to please the governing classes? Since when had Her Majesty's Government got this great respect for the Turkish officials who tyrannized over the Egyptian people? This respect must be of a recent date, and of an evanescent character, for two months had hardly elapsed before the Government, by the despatch of the 4th of January, brushed away the governing classes as you brush away flies from a window. The plea that the Government were not responsible for the massacre at Sinkat, because General Baker gave them to understand that he had adequate resources for its relief, and because, when his prophecies were falsified, they were not in telegraphic communication with General Gordon, was distinguished for its fickleness even among the many feeble excuses to which this debate had given birth. It was not given to everyone to contemplate the agonies of a starving garrison with the philosophic calm affected by Her Majesty's Government. Moreover, how came it that it never entered the mind of the Government to have consulted General Gordon before he left Cairo as to what should be done in case General Baker's Expedition should fail? It was owing to this culpable negligence that they were compelled to wait three or four days until he was again in telegraphic communication with Europe. It was melancholy to reflect on the profit-and-loss account of Egypt—what she had gained and what she had suffered from English interference. On the side of loss there were £3,000,000 added to the Debt, a bombardment, two bloody defeats, two massacres, and the certainty of more. On the side of profit were a house-tax imposed on foreigners, a Cadastral Survey begun and not finished, and a paper Constitution. If there was any other gain he hoped the Government would tell them what it was. They had absolutely committed themselves for some time to come to the government of the country. If they had not done it before, they did it by the despatch of the 4th of January. Any Government must set itself resolutely to the task, and must not keep saying—"We mean to go out in six months." With that idea dangling before their gaze, no Government could fulfil the great obligations that have been entered into. We had put our hands to the plough, and could not make progress by looking back. They must remain in Egypt for as many years as might be necessary for the purpose of carrying out the pledges of the Government. To attain their object with success the Government must set about it in a different spirit from that which had hitherto inspired them. In order to conciliate their Radical supporters they favoured the dream of an evacuation in six months; in order to conciliate Europe they said before they left they would establish a staple Government. These propositions were absolutely inconsistent. From whatever side of the House the Government was drawn it must throw over the idea of early evacuation. It was folly to think that the shattered Government of the Khedive could be restored in six months; the work of destruction carried on by the Government had been too complete to be repaired under many years. If they were to entertain the hope of leaving at all, they must cease to dangle before the Egyptian Ministers and people and their own Radical Party the hope of leaving at an early date. If they insisted on such a course, they would leave Egypt in that condition for which it must be owned the actions of the Government seemed to show they had great predilection—namely, anarchy conducted on philanthropic principles.

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

said, the last two speeches that had been delivered from the Opposition Benches had reminded him, very forcibly, of a celebrated scene in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels—that scene in which the novelist gave an account of two sermons addressed to the Scottish Presbyterian Army, after the battle of Loudon Hill. There was, first of all, the discourse of a very eloquent and rather loud minister, the Rev. Mr. Kettledrummle, who divided his discourse into numerous heads, each of which he garnished with what he called seven uses of application—the first two, of consolation; the second two, of terror; the next two, declaring the causes of backsliding and of wrath; and one, announcing the promised and ex- pected deliverance of his friends, and their entry before long upon office and power. The discourse was a little too strong, even for his own supporters; and, after a time, they turned, with a feeling of relief, to the more polished accents of the Rev. Ephraim M'Briar, the leader of another section of their divided party. Last night they, in that House, had had the advantage of hearing, from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross), the loud notes of Mr. Kettledrummle; to-night they had heard the polished accents of the Rev. Ephraim M'Briar. Last night the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire had begun by making one of the most astonishing statements that had ever been made in the House of Commons—a statement which illustrated how entirely Party wrath might blind a man's perceptions—for he had said, of the magnificent oration delivered the other night by the Prime Minister, that the right hon. Gentleman had spoken for an hour and a-half and had never even alluded to the question.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

I said the right hon. Gentleman had never alluded to the question of the garrisons.

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

, continuing, said, not only the reports of the speech, but the recollection and understanding of nearly everybody on that side of the House was very different from what the right hon. Gentleman now said; but, of course, he willingly accepted the correction, and was exceedingly glad to learn that the right hon. Gentleman shared the belief that no speech had ever been made in this House which more thoroughly grasped and dealt with the question before it. The right hon. Gentleman had attempted to reply to the remarks of the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) upon the question of the Dual Control and to the observations of the Prime Minister two evenings before, and the right hon. Gentleman's Friend the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had followed a similar course. It was a most astonishing thing that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite could not understand the history of the Dual Control, though it happened at the time when they were in Office. Such ignorance served to confirm the impress- sion, which was then very prevalent, that in the time of Lord Beaconsfield, and when Lord Salisbury was at the Foreign Office, right hon. Gentlemen opposite were allowed to have little to do with the foreign policy of the Government. In those days, foreign affairs were carried on in the same way as in the time of the great head of the house of Cecil in the days of James I, who addressed the famous remonstrance to the House of Commons, telling them that they were not to interfere in mysteries of State, but to attend to their own local and domestic business. The Dual Control might be said to have passed through certain stages. First of all, there was a non-political Control, carried on by two foreign Controllers, it was true, but not influenced by the Governments they represented. That Control, which was set up by Lord Derby, came to an end, and then there was a short period when there was no Control at all, but two foreigners in the direct service of the Egyptian Government directed the Ministries of Finance and Public Works. When that stage came to an end, an untoward series of events brought in that political Control which was the subject of reference by the Prime Minister in Mid Lothian, and which was strongly spoken against by his right hon. Friend the present President of the Local Government Board in that House, and by himself (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) in the country. From that time might be dated many of our troubles in Egypt. It was unfair to reproach the Prime Minister for not having mentioned it during the debate on the Address in 1880; because the subject was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech, and could not, therefore, have been easily introduced into the debate on the Address. It was thus clear that Members of the Liberal Party had paid great attention to that question, and had signalized its dangers at the time. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire said we had not acted up to the measure of our responsibilities, and that we had not owned our responsibilities in any document. His (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's) reply was that our responsibilities were clearly indicated by the telegram of January 4. He was sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) had spoken regretfully of that telegram; but he did not admit for a single moment that the telegram was in any way inconsistent with their previous policy.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

I said the telegram showed a miscalculation, not inconsistency.

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

said, he must urge that the telegram was perfectly consistent with all the previous policy of the Government. As had been stated by his right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, Lord Granville and the Prime Minister both stated last year, in the debate on the Address, their objects in Egypt to be twofold. What the Government felt was that, in the first place, they had an important purpose to effect, and a work to carry out, in Egypt; and that, in the second place, when that purpose was accomplished they would be sincerely desirous of withdrawing; but, with regard to a definition of time, it was impossible to go beyond the expression of a hope, because it was evident that the purpose they had in view must regulate the time to be employed, and no arbitrary time for such withdrawal must be fixed so as to interfere with the carrying out of that purpose. That was not only perfectly clear, but it was perfectly consistent with the policy underlying the telegram of January 4. No departure from the original policy of the Government was contemplated. The idea of a permanent annexation or permanent Control was as far as ever from the intentions of Her Majesty's Government. "That was still, as it always had been, their policy; but the application of the principles by which the Government were guided must necessarily be subject to a certain amount of variation in consequence of the circumstances of the time, and the position of responsibility that had devolved upon them. It was an advantage in a prolonged debate like the present that, after a time, irrelevant issues were put aside, and the real points, as in a lawsuit, were brought before the Court. He thought that already a good number of the charges against the Government had been brought out distinctly, answered distinctly, and got rid of. An inaccurate statement had been made about the Soudan not having been a drain on the finances of Egypt in the time of General Gordon; and with respect to it, the hon. Member for Hertford seemed not to have read the interest- ing Blue Book issued last year, which contained Colonel Stewart's Report on the Soudan; for he made the statement that the finances of the Soudan had not been drawn in any degree from the finances of Egypt. It was, however, a positive fact that Egypt had incurred a debt of £400,000 in respect of the Soudan, and that, when General Gordon left his office, there was a deficit of something like £70,000 a-year. Those facts ought to cause hesitation in the minds of hon. Members who desired to see British officers advancing into the Soudan—a country which must for ever have a melancholy interest for Englishmen. These items having been got rid of, the counts against the Government were now in reality reduced to two—"Why did you not stop the expedition of General Hicks? And why did you not relieve Sinkat?" Before proceeding to say a few words in reply to these charges, he wished to pay a tribute to the bravery of General Hicks, who, whether his enterprize was held to be wise or unwise, and though he had not perished in the service of his own country, was none the less a British officer, and, they must all admit, had met his death like a British soldier. And the same might be said of his comrades. He wished also to point out a strange error into which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire fell in speaking of "Colonel Moncrieff's army." The right hon. Gentleman's mistake had been repeated by more than one newspaper. Now, Consul Moncrieff, to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred, was accompanying an expedition; but he was not at the head of any army, and he was not, at the time he met his death in so gallant a manner, employed by the Egyptian Government. He was anxious, more especially as he represented the Foreign Office in that House, to say, on behalf of that Office, that they had lost in Consul Moncrieff not only a brave man, but an accomplished diplomatist and a most efficient and able Consular Agent. They were asked why they did not stop the expedition of Hicks Pasha? Nothing was so easy as to prophesy after the event. Looking at the matter from the ordinary view of probability, there was no reason to anticipate the crushing disaster which attended General Hicks. He said that crushing disaster, because if General Hicks had met with a momentary check, such as might, perhaps, have been anticipated, no serious result would in all probability have followed from it. What made General Hicks's defeat so important was its crushing and overwhelming character. Probably, since Pharaoh's host perished in the Red Sea, there had been no disaster so sudden and so overwhelming, no such complete destruction of a host, as the destruction and disappearance, he might almost say, of General Hicks's army in the wastes of Kordofan. How, in the spirit of common fairness, could Her Majesty's Government be expected to foresee such a disaster as that? They were told that they ought to have foreseen it, because they knew that General Hicks's army was inefficient. He wished hon. Members would read the despatch from Lord Dufferin, in which it was distinctly stated that the expedition of General Hicks was not a forlorn hope, and in which his Lordship said that General Hicks had gained a series of most important victories and had shown the same energy and military skill that distinguished him during the revolt in India, when he rendered such memorable service to his country. Therefore, Her Majesty's Government might fairly argue that there was no reason for them to suppose that, even if General Hicks's great success did not continue to accompany him, there was any chance of such complete destruction as occurred in the first week of November last. In connection with that melancholy event, which he should have thought would have sobered the minds of all men, they had the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) returning to his charges against the Khedive, whom he had described as the most despicable of Rulers, with the extraordinary story that it was the result of a conspiracy between him and Omar Lufti, the Minister of War for Egypt, who shared with the Khedive the disadvantage of the constant attacks of the noble Lord. He (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) thought the noble Lord ought to settle the little matter about the Khedive with his own Leaders. The noble Lord had told them on some recent occasions—not in that House, but in the country—that he had a very great admiration for Lord Salisbury, for his Leadership, for his skill, and for his judgment. He (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice), himself, was glad also to express the great admiration which all must feel for Lord Salisbury's great abilities and energy. But the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock, who was a Member of the same Party as Lord Salisbury, took an early opportunity to show what a low idea he entertained of the wisdom and foresight of his Leader. Speaking of the Khedive and one of his Ministers, the noble Lord accused them of being parties to the massacres, and of having shown the grossest cowardice. But Lord Salisbury, at the famous meeting in Willis's Rooms, in 1882, the account of which ought to be laid as a Parliamentary Paper, said— You have pledged yourselves to the present Viceroy of Egypt; you have promised to sustain him; you have induced him, by your promise, to face the anger of powerful sections of his own people; you have induced him to place himself in a position of unexampled danger; and you cannot, unless you are the meanest of mankind, abandon him to that danger.…. Conceive the effect it will produce if it is known throughout the East that the Viceroy of Egypt, who abandoned himself to your counsels, and who, in deference to your counsels, opposed many of his subjects and allowed himself to be brought into great danger, was in a moment of crisis abandoned to his fate. He then went on to speak of the Khedive as an amiable and respectable Prince, worthy of the support which the noble Lord at that great meeting was asking should be accorded to him. But, in addition to Lord Salisbury, the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), tempted by some fatal and overruling influence, also got inside Willis's Rooms, where a large number of stormy and excited persons had assembled. When he (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) happened to see the right hon. Gentleman walking across to the rooms, he thought to himself of the sight sometimes seen on a hot summer's day—against a garden wall a glass case, in which there were a great number of angry wasps, and into the middle of them there had walked, by mistake, and greatly ruing it, a beautiful butterfly. And he, too, spoke strongly on behalf of the Khedive. The case against the Government for not interfering to stop the expedition of Hicks Pasha had, he thought, been found wanting, and he desired now to say a few words about another count in the indictment against Her Majesty's Government. They were asked why they did not relieve Sinkat. They adhered to their reply, that they had every right to believe that the expedition of Baker Pasha would be a success; and it was not a justifiable argument that, notwithstanding the asseverations of Baker Pasha himself, they ought to have known that his force was not trustworthy. It seemed to him that it would have been a very strange thing, to say the least of it, for Her Majesty's Government to have come forward with a demand, leading to a Vote in Supply, to incur a great expense of sending an armed expedition, when they had no reason, on the face of it, to suppose that Baker Pasha would not succeed, and when they had, besides, his own positive testimony that he was likely to succeed.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

Will the noble Lord give the date of that testimony?

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

The day he left.

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

said, they were told that that telegram arrived too late to be of any value to them, and that the evidence they had before them was of such a character as to lead them to know that his army was untrustworthy. Well, he emphatically denied that they ought to have known anything of the kind. He had seen many Papers on the subject, and he had had the advantage, that afternoon, of consulting Sir Charles Wilson, who was universally accepted as a high authority on Egyptian matters, about the composition of Baker Pasha's Army. He asked him whether the gendarmerie were the miserable creatures which they had been represented; and he said they were nothing of the kind, and that he believed it would have been difficult to have found any Egyptian men who, on the whole, were more likely to show themselves reliable soldiers, and for this reason, that the composition of the gendarmerie was not that of a police force, but a military force. In point of fact, the gendarmerie formed a part of the Egyptian Army. The men who had enlisted in it had nearly all been in the former Egyptian Army; they were strong men in the flower of their life and full of energy and vigour, who had been noncommissioned officers in Arabi Pasha's Army. On this point, his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India (Mr. J. K. Cross), who had been in Egypt, would be able to speak from his personal experience, as well as upon the authority of Sir Charles Wilson; but, even if the men had been merely policemen, that was no reason why they should necessarily make bad soldiers. For instance, if, in any great emergency, when the Regular Army had broken down, we were compelled to rely upon our Constabulary, he believed that they would form a most valuable addition to our National Forces. He maintained, then, that there was no ground for the assertion that Baker Pasha's Army was an army of ragamuffins, or of such a Falstaffian character as was stated, and that the Government had no reason to suppose, from the information which reached them from their Representatives, that it was certain or even likely to fail. Besides these two points, the failure to stop the expedition of Hicks Pasha and the failure to relieve Sinkat, which stood out in the forefront of the picture drawn by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, there was a dark background. They told the House that the breakdown of Hicks Pasha's expedition, and the disasters which followed, had revealed in a lurid light the utter failure of the domestic policy of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt, and showed that everything had been a complete breakdown. He, however, failed to see that there was any connection between the two subjects, and he denied, in the strongest manner he could, that the policy of reform in Egypt had failed. He did not see the connection; but no doubt it had happened in Egypt, as it always happened in every country in the world, that a great military disaster having been experienced, domestic reforms had momentarily suffered. It was, however, the fact that those to whom had been intrusted the initiation of domestic reforms in Egypt had achieved great results within a very limited time. He would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite of the old proverb, that "Rome was not built in a day." How long was it since the battle of Tel-el-Kebir was fought? Did they think it possible to rebuild Egyptian institutions, and renew a country which had suffered for centuries from the grossest forms of misgovernment, in one year and four months?

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

You said you were going to do it in six months.

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

said, the question was not as to four or six months. His argument was, that, considering the time which had gone by since the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, the results accomplished had been remarkable. ["Oh, oh!"] He did not think that those hon. Members who jeered at his observations had taken the trouble of wading through the Blue Books on the subject, which had not a very tempting look. But if they could find time and patience to do so, they would find that a great deal had been done. Doubtless, as time went on, a great deal more would be done. The year that had gone by might be called the first stage of operations. The Judicial Courts had been reconstituted; the Codes they were to administer had been settled, and the Judges chosen. Representative institutions were, perhaps, a hope and an expectation; but judicial reform was a living reality. Nubar Pasha, the President of the Council of Ministers, had all his life been an advocate of judicial reform, and would carry it through. They had been able to get rid of the special Military Tribunals which had existed last year, and the action of which had been commented upon in that House, because they had acted upon principles which were repugnant to the English Law of Evidence. Before they could carry out law reforms the reforms must exist; before they could have organization they must have trustworthy organizing officers; and before they had a land survey they must have persons competent to undertake it. All those reforms were being proceeded with. With regard to the question of land survey, it was being carried out in the way that it was in India, by calling in the assistance of the heads of the villages. The measurements were measurements that the Natives understood; therefore the new cadastre would prove successful. As it had been at first established, it had been most unpopular, because the measurements used were foreign and could not be understood by the Natives; but now the Native measurements were used, greatly to the satisfaction of the people. In the same way the Irrigation Department had been a failure, because it was not placed under the control of a trustworthy officer; whereas now some advance had been made in it, for it was under the direction of Colonel Moncrieff, who had shown himself to be a most competent officer, and was choosing equally trustworthy district officers. When he referred to what had been done for the fellaheen, hon. Members opposite appeared to regard the matter as a capital joke, and an imposing piece of humbug. The Foreign Office, however, had not treated the matter as one for joking, but had dealt with it as one affecting the moral and material interests of a considerable portion of the human race. The subject of the Egyptian prisons was of even more importance than of those to which he had already alluded, and a great many Questions had been asked in that House about them. On this point he would not quote from mere official Reports, because hon. Members opposite might regard them as being based on the evidence of prejudiced witnesses; but he intended to rely on the evidence of independent, if not hostile, witnesses. It was the privilege of British journalism to be independent, and there were many Correspondents in Egypt, and those gentlemen did not always take a favourable view of the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government. The Correspondent of The Times at Cairo sent the following telegram the other day to that journal:— I lately accompanied Mr. Clifford Lloyd in an unexpected visit to the Cairo prisons. The change effected in a few months is remarkable. The gaols are cleaner than the private houses, and the prisoners are employed in different trades. The sanitary arrangements are almost perfect. A careful register is kept of all the prisoners. On the last occasion when I visited the prison I was besieged by petitioners. Now, there was only one who alleged that he suffered unjust imprisonment, and all declared that they were properly cared for. But it was not only the Correspondent of The Times who thought in that way. He could quote another most important witness, the Baron Malortie, who had the other day written an article in The Contemporary Review upon the outlook in Egypt. No doubt, there were many very severe remarks in that article which reflected upon Her Majesty's Government; but anybody who read the article would see at once that the changes introduced into Egypt by Mr. Clifford Lloyd were of a remarkably beneficial nature. In that article, Baron Malortie says— The first important chauge introduced by Mr. Clifford Lloyd is the abolition ef the gendarmerie and the local police, and there-organization of the constabulary.… and by well-conceived centralization of the services, enormous savings will he effected. At Cairo alone the savings will exceed £30,000 a-year, and at present 14 officers are doing the work formerly done by 70. Similar results are obtained at Alexandria and elsewhere; and though only in working order since January 1, it may be anticipated that before long a considerable change will he noticeable. Baksheesh has had its day; the good pleasure of the great and private vengeance can no longer be gratified, and the gaols can no more he used as moans of extortion. Indeed, if Mr. Clifford Lloyd had to his credit nothing but the present reform, the Natives would owe him a lasting debt of gratitude.…. With an iron broom Mr. Clifford Lloyd has swept out these Augean stables of iniquity, and henceforth prisoners are well cared for; while no one can he immured on mere suspicion, or be kept in prison without a Judge's order. That was very high testimony of the excellent work done by Mr. Clifford Lloyd; and here he would say he was sorry to hear the laughter with which the mention of the name of Mr. Clifford Lloyd to-night was received by hon. Members opposite. Whatever the difference of opinion about Mr. Clifford Lloyd in Ireland, the case of Mr. Clifford Lloyd in Egypt was another thing. Even admitting that hon. Members opposite might disagree from his conduct in Ireland, it was entirely a different thing to pursue him in Egypt. In Egypt he had undoubtedly worked hard for liberty, reform, and order. It was said that the abandonment of the Soudan would lead to the revival of the Slave Trade in that Province. The Slave Trade had always been a question which had appealed to the minds of Englishmen, and it was not likely that Her Majesty's Government would neglect the subject. On the contrary, so far from that, it would before long be his duty to ask the House for a larger Vote in order to deal with the Slave Trade. He did not understand how the hon. Member for Hertford could possibly be entitled to attack Her Majesty's Government in regard to the Slave Trade, for he had evidently not taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with any of the Blue Books which had been laid upon the Table of the House, which showed the extraordinary activity of Her Majesty's Government all along the Coast of Africa. Measures of a most extensive character were being taken on the whole of the East Coast of Africa in order to stop the Slave Trade; and the Government believed that these measures, taken in connection with the suppression of the Slave Market in Egypt, would do more to put down that abominable traffic than all the Expeditions to the Soudan. The Slave Trade was, of course, of immense importance, especially along the Bed Sea Coast. ["Question!"] An hon. Member cried "Question!" This was a question which had been alluded to by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he was answering them. A great deal had been said with reference to the retention of the littoral of the Red Sea, and the Government had been asked why they did not go inland as well, and why they had one policy on the coast, and another in the interior of the Soudan. He would remind hon. Members that the Red Sea had always been, and always would be, considered a question of British and of Egyptian interest. Were hon. Members unaware that Lord Salisbury, when at the Foreign Office, always pursued the policy of strengthening British interests in the Red Sea? The fact was that this country had always exercised an interest along the Red Sea in regard to everything that went on there, whether it was in the erection of lighthouses or in other and more important respects. To say that there was an inconsistency in the position of the Government in regard to the Red Sea—that, because they had given up the Soudan, they ought to give up the Red Sea Coast as well, and if they kept the Red Sea Coast, they ought to keep the Soudan—was really most illogical and absurd, the two questions being entirely apart. Eight hon. and hon. Members opposite were exceedingly vague in their geographical ideas. [Laughter.] The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock had appealed to him to enter into the details of the geography of the Soudan; but he would not do so, he would simply point out that the political and the geographical Soudan were two very different things. The Soudan was a large and general expression, and it had hardly ever been held in any sense to include the Red Sea Coast. It was true that the Red Sea Coast had, indeed, been included recently by the Egyptian Government in the political Province of the Soudan; but, in common parlance, it was not included in the Soudan. The distinction between Egypt Proper and the Soudan was marked by history and by nature. It was so in ancient times. It was not until Mehemet Ali plunged into his great conquests that the idea of annexing the Soudan was heard of, and there could be no doubt that the policy of Her Majesty's Government in making a clear separation between the Red Sea Coast and the Soudan was in every way fully justified. The views of hon. Gentlemen opposite were exceedingly difficult to define. They told the Liberals that they were a divided Party, and they called upon the Government to act in regard to Egypt with energy and activity as the only means of bringing about a satisfactory state of things in that country. He might, however, remind the House, and hon. Gentlemen opposite in particular, that some of the greatest statesmen of their own Party had neglected to pursue that policy of energy and activity which they now demanded. In his own opinion, a highhanded policy of annexation if introduced with regard to Egypt would be nothing short of madness. In addition to all these considerations, the whole history of the case showed that the connection of Egypt with the Soudan was a purely modern connection, and in renewing their separation they were renewing that which Nature had indicated and history had confirmed. Four years ago the country decided in an unmistakable manner in favour of the views of the present Prime Minister against those of the late Lord Beaconsfield. It declared that, consistently with the maintenance of the national honour and British interests, this country was to pursue a peaceful policy. The Government which, two nights ago, through the mouth of the Prime Minister, informed the country that, under present circumstances, it was impossible to withdraw from Egypt now, might, no doubt, to-morrow appeal without fear as to the result, against this Vote of Censure, to the country which has not altered its opinion. But that course would not be necessary, because, in the first instance, judgment would be given by the House of Commons, which would decline to force upon the Foreign Office the inconsistent views and the incomprehensible policy of a divided Opposition.

SIR FREDERICK MILNER

said, he felt some diffidence in intruding him- self on the notice of the House; but he thought that even a young Member had a right to raise his voice in indignant protest against—what he maintained to be the case, in spite of the denial of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister—the inconsistent and disastrous policy adopted by the Government in their conduct of affairs in Egypt. He thought, too, the House would give a kindly hearing to one who, although new to political warfare, had ever taken the deepest interest in all that concerned the honour and welfare of his country. He would not take up the time of the House too long by going deeply into the affairs of Egypt before she had the misfortune to become the protégé of the Government of England; and, indeed, he felt he could reiterate the charges that had already been pressed homo; but he would repeat those charges in the earnest hope that at each repetition of them some conscientious sheep might be prevailed upon to stray from that docile flock which had so long been wont to follow their great Shepherd, whether he led them towards pastures green or towards dangerous shoals and quicksands. It seemed to him that, whenever things did not go as they should, Her Majesty's Ministers invariably tried to avoid responsibility, and to account for their misfortunes by attributing them to the faults and mismanagements of their Predecessors. It would, however, be very much better if they sometimes looked for the cause a little nearer home; and then we might hope the fault would not so often be repeated. His contention was, that even if the policy of the Conservative Government in Egypt was a mistake—which they did not for a moment admit—even if that excellent investment in the Suez Canal was a mistake; if the deposition of Ismail Pasha was a grievous blunder, and the establishment of the Dual Control an unpardonable sin—yet that Her Majesty's Ministers were not one whit less deserving of the severest censure for their conduct of affairs since they assumed the Control. Personally, he felt inclined to suggest—and there were many who shared his opinion—that it was the weak-kneed and ever-yielding policy of the Government both at home and abroad that really encouraged Arabi to attempt his coup d'état. He would further suggest that all the recent troubles and disasters had been brought about by the extrordinary conduct of the Government at the time of the occupation of Cairo by our troops, and by the equivocal position they had assumed ever since. We had from the Prime Minister himself, in his speech on Tuesday night, an account of the state of Egypt after we had entered into the occupation of that country. The Prime Minister said— The Army was broken up and the institutions of the country were gone. We had before us the work of reconstitution. That was to say, we had to restore law and order in Egypt, and, at the same time, to establish a good system of government on a firm and lasting basis. This we declared our intention of doing; but, almost in the same breath, we announced our intention to scuttle out of the country in a few months. There was no hon. Member in the House so utterly ignorant of the corrupt, incompetent, and contemptible character of the Egyptians as not to know that it would be as easy to turn the world topsy-turvy as to suppose that, by the establishment of a police force under Baker Pasha, and by a six months' occupation of the country, we could hope to establish a good Government in Egypt. And this insane declaration of our intended evacuation rendered utterly impotent any good effect that might have ensued from our occupation. It was true that a merciful Providence did interpose, by means of two terrible scourges, to prevent our evacuating the country; but the Government, callous to warning, had plunged deeper and deeper into the slough, until he feared it would now take All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men To get Her Majesty's Ministers out again. Thus, then, it might be fairly argued that the Ministers had only themselves to thank for all the troubles that had arisen, or for the difficulties in which they found themselves, and into which they had been blundering deeper and deeper. All the present disasters were the consequence of their own inconsistency, and were in no way due to the policy of the Conservative Government. The fact of the matter was, that a Cabinet divided against itself could not stand; and it was impossible to pursue a successful policy, if you determined to be all things to all men. Before he proceeded to discuss the charges which had been brought against the Government, he wished to Bay one word on the Primo Minister's speech. He would admit he was completely fascinated by the right hon. Gentleman's eloquence, and carried away by his marvellous oratory, and he was content to listen spell-bound on the hardest of seats, and with a terrible craving for dinner; but when the charm of the speaker was gone, and when, in the glaring light of day, he read a verbatim report of his speech, he found that the right hon. Gentleman had never attempted to fairly grapple with, or tried to refute, the grave charges which had been brought against him. It was true he refuted some charges; but they were charges he made against himself in order to refute them. The right hon. Gentleman taunted the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote) with having censured the policy of the Government without having declared any policy of his own. He (Sir Frederick Milner) humbly submitted that it would neither be prudent, nor diplomatic, for the Leader of the Opposition to declare a policy. The Opposition had also reason to know, from their experience of Her Majesty's Government, that they were not disinclined to pick out the plums of a policy, even when they had condemned it; and the Opposition, therefore, could hardly be blamed if they wished to put their policy into practice themselves. But, as a matter of fact, the very condemnation that the Opposition was now passing on the Government amounted to nothing more nor less than a declaration of their policy. Their policy would have been to have given the best advice, and to insist upon its being taken; to have employed the best men and most competent advisers to have carried out the work, and to have seen that they were not thwarted in carrying it out. The Government, it was true, had sent out plenty of good men to advise on the situation; but what was the good of sending them, if their advice was not to be followed? Now for the charges against Her Majesty's Government with regard to the lamentable occurrences in the Soudan. After the occupation of Cairo by our troops, the Government pursued three distinct policies—a policy of advice, a policy of irresponsibility, and a policy of compulsion. The policy of advice was initiated by Lord Dufferin, and very good advice he gave too; but, as far as the Egyptian Government were concerned, it went in at one ear and out at the other. Lord Dufferin's advice was in accordance with the opinion of men like Sir Samuel Baker and others, well acquainted with the Soudan and its people; and, as we all knew, it was this—That the Egyptian Government should content themselves with establishing their authority in Sennaar and Khartoum, and thus reserve to themselves the Eastern Soudan, which, far from being a barren or sterile country, had been happily described as the stomach, as the Delta was the mouth, of the fertile Valley of the Nile. Had this advice been taken all these terrible disasters might have been avoided. Hicks Pasha actually carried out this plan to the letter, and Lord Dufferin left Egypt under the pleasant assurance that what he had advised had been carried out with complete success. Had it not been for the blundering incapacity—he feared we might say, with justice, the jealousy and duplicity of the Khedive and his advisers—poor Hicks might have been alive at this moment. Then came the period of irresponsibility. The Prime Minister insinuated that the charge brought against the Government in this instance was—to use his own words— That we ought to have supplied Egypt with an Army such as would, under the circumstances, have been able to have carried on the war with effect. No such charge was ever brought at all, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition denied that he had ever made such a charge. The charge was this, that, having taken on ourselves the responsibility of advising the Egyptian Government, we ought to have insisted on our advice being taken, and we ought to have prevented their carrying out their insane policy of invading Kordofan. In support of this charge let him quote some extracts from the Prime Minister's speech. The right hon. Gentleman said— We conveyed to the Egyptian Government that our military occupation entails upon us an obligation as well as a duty. Again, having stated that we were bound to counsel the Khedive to the best of our ability, he went on— If we counselled the Khedive to the best of our ability, we were bound to support our counsels by our acts. It seemed to him (Sir Frederick Milner) an absurd situation for us to be in military occupation of Egypt, and yet to have no right to interfere till after the disasters, which we foresaw and could have prevented, became accomplished facts. The Prime Minister excused himself from this charge, that we had no right to interfere with the authority of the Khedive "except in matters of vital importance." Now, he (Sir Frederick Milner) asked, was it not a matter of vital importance to save poor Hicks? Was it not a matter of vital importance to save the thousands of lives that that expedition involved? The Parliamentary Papers dealing with Egypt formed as sad a page of history as ever was written. They proved, beyond contradiction, that all poor Hicks's telegrams went direct to Sir Edward Malet; and that thus we actually knew that this gallant fellow was leaving the position we had secured, and leaving it with the gloomiest forebodings—that he had absolutely no money; that he had a force altogether insufficient for his purpose; and that, in short, he was marching to a certain doom; and yet, though it was easily in our power to have prevented this, we did not raise one finger to save these thousands of our fellow-creatures from their fate, because, forsooth, we did not wish to offend the Khedive, or jeopardize his dignity. Was not this policy inconsistent with the honour and dignity of England? Was it not inconsistent with the mere instincts of humanity? And was he not justified in stating that such a policy would leave a lasting stain on the fair name of the Ministry that initiated it? It seemed to him that Her Majesty's Ministers never shut the door of the stable until the horse was stolen; that they never took steps to avert disaster until the disaster itself had actually happened. What was the Prime Minister's defence of this portion of his policy? He said— It would be an unfortunate policy to show an indifference to the Khedive's dignity by unnecessary interference. Was it not a far more unfortunate policy to allow the Khedive's Forces to be defeated and massacred, and then to adopt the policy of compulsion, which, if adopted sooner, at any rate would have saved him from these calamities? From the beginning to the end of the Prime Minister's speech there was not one single argument which even proved extenuating circumstances as to the conduct of the Government at this critical period. With the massacre of Hicks Pasha and his Army our policy of irresponsibility came to an end, and now commenced the policy of compulsion. Her Majesty's Ministers seemed to have suddenly discovered that the war in the Soudan was hateful to the Egyptians, and that it was an act of gross injustice to the Soudanese to attempt to reconquer their country. He had noticed of late that the Prime Minister had shown a great leaning towards self-government; and he noticed also that his comments on the Soudan for the Soudanese were received with loud cheers from the Home Rule Benches; and he had no doubt that hon. Members on those Benches would ere long thrust the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman down his throat. He would not attempt to enter into the question of the reconquest of the Soudan; but he would only say this—that it seemed to him that if all these petty Sultans were restored to their different Provinces; that if we allowed the Soudanese to manage their own affairs without control or authority of any kind being exercised in the country, we should give an impetus to that revolting and degrading traffic in human flesh, such as it had not known for considerably more than half-a-century. With the massacre of Hicks and his Army the policy of irresponsibility ended, and the policy of compulsion began; and his contention was, that after adopting the policy of compulsion, after insisting on the evacuation of the Soudan, and the resignation of the Cherif Ministry, the English Government directly identified themselves, once and for all, with the affairs of Egypt, with her reverses and successes; and he maintained that in this they were responsible for the expedition of Baker Pasha, and were identified with his defeat. It was all very well to say that Baker was satisfied with the force at his disposal and with his prospects of success. Baker was both a gallant and sanguine man; and he had no personal experience of the fighting power of his troops. But what was the opinion of his brother, Sir Samuel Baker, who had had that experience? Why, he had the gloomiest forebodings as to the result of the expedition. He pointed out that the troops sent with his brother were most unreliable; that they had been driven to the war at the point of the bayonet; that his brother knew not a word of Arabic; and, in short, that the expedition could end in nothing but disaster and defeat. Did not our experience tally with his? Did we not, from various circumstances, know what miserable, contemptible cowards these soldiers were? Did we not know that a lot "of scarecrows with guns in their hands would have been as efficient as they?" Why, he could name an hon. Member of the House who, when acting as Correspondent at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, though armed only with a riding whip, compelled an Egyptian officer and some 30 men to lay down their arms at his command; and yet these were the men we sent forward to relieve the beleaguered and unfortunate garrison of Sinkat—these were the men to whom we were content to entrust such valuable lives as Baker's and his gallant comrades. Defeat and disgrace were the inevitable consequence; and this time England's name and England's Ministers, say what they would, were distinctly identified with the defeat and the disgrace. The garrison at Sinkat, with their noble leader, were the next victims that were sacrificed at the altar of Ministerial incompetence, and he had not heard from any hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House a satisfactory reason why measures were not taken to relieve it; and now, at length, we had adopted the only plan likely to have a successful result in the case of Tokar. But let it be remembered the hordes of the Mahdi were flushed with victory; their frequent victories had been the means of increasing thair numbers and their power; and our task, even with our gallant soldiers and sailors, might not prove as easy now as it would have done some few weeks ago. If, then, disaster should happen to them, it would only be another outcome of the wretched, dilatory policy that Her Majesty's Ministers had thought fit to pursue from first to last. He wished to say one word as to General Gordon. He noticed last night that the faces of the Prime Minister and his faithful supporters were radiant with smiles; and he imagined that the cause of those smiles might have been the re-assuring and satisfactory news received of the proceedings of General Gordon. Well, he ventured to say that news would give just as great pleasure to every Member on the Opposition side of the House as to every Member on the Ministerial Benches. There was nothing so contemptible as to contemplate with satisfaction a possible disaster for the sake of Party capital. He did not believe there was a single Member in the House, a single man in the country, so mean as to wish to gain a Party triumph by a terrible disaster to such a man, and who did not pray from his heart that the expedition of that noble hero might be attended with complete success. But the very news of his success would lead to the question—If General Gordon can succeed now in his mission, after all this blood had been shed, how much easier would it have been for him to have succeeded in November, before the forces of the Mahdi had learned their power? Yes; the question would be asked again and again—"Why was he not employed months ago—the only man that could have hoped to settle the difficulties in the Soudan satisfactorily and without bloodshed?" The only answer given to the question was the lame excuse that his employment was objectionable to the Khedive and his Ministers. Why was he objectionable to them? Why, because he was an honest, straightforward man—a man without fear and without reproach—one whom no amount of wealth, no amount of honours to be conferred, could turn from unflinchingly following the straight and narrow path of duty; and that was not in accord with the ideas and inclinations of the Egyptian Ministers. They knew they could not make a tool of him, but that what he undertook he would do; and that was all the more reason why we should have promptly employed him, knowing full well that by his skill would the difficulty be easiest solved, and that, at the same time, the real interests of Egypt would best be served. He thanked the House for the kind manner in which it had listened to him, and trusted he had shown to the satisfaction of some Members of the House that the policy of the Government in Egypt had been inconsistent and mischievous in its results; that it had been a policy of delay, and in consequence a policy of disaster. He feared he could not hope to have converted many hon. Members opposite. Some of them would have made up their minds before the debate began; others, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), would condemn the Government in their heart, but would not register their vote against them; and others would follow the Government into the Lobby for similar reasons to those so ingeniously confessed the other night by the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. D. Davies), because they did not want to be pitched into, and told to go over to the other Party. But he would venture to say this—that if each hon. Member would give himself an honest answer to this question—"Can I conscientiously say that I approve of the policy of the Government in Egypt, and think it has not been a bad one?" and if he would abide by that answer, Her Majesty's Ministers would have to walk into the Lobby friendless and alone. They had been condemned already by the majority of their countrymen; by many of their own partizans—aye, even those organs that had been accustomed to befriend and applaud their conduct condemned them as loudly as anyone else; they had been tried before all Christendom, and the verdict that had been unanimously returned was that they were guilty—guilty of the thousands of lives that had been sacrificed, guilty of the misery that had befallen the land of Egypt, guilty of the blood that had literally deluged that unhappy country.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

DR. LYONS

said, that he, in common with all hon. Members of that House, had followed with the deepest interest, in the official records, the dramatic scenes which had taken place in Egypt. When he thought of the actors in those great scenes, he could not help being struck in an especial manner with the character of the servants of the Khedive, and the part they had played throughout these scenes; and when he looked to the position of great public and international obligations which this country held in regard to Egypt after the battle of Telel-Kebir, he could not but come to the conclusion that Her Majesty's Government had handled with remarkable skill and care a position of singular difficulty and great delicacy. They found amongst the late Ministry of the Khedive some men, at all events, distinguished for ability, and for the services they had rendered to the country which they had chosen to adopt. Foremost among these was Cherif Pasha, who was a man whose character it was impossible to regard without a considerable sense of admiration for the qualities he had displayed. No one who took into consideration the position which Cherif held at that time, and the delicacy of the position which the English Government occupied in that country, could fail to see that the action of the Government required the greatest possible nicety of management and skill. Egypt was in no sense a conquered country; and to impress our will by brute force upon a people, circumstanced as the Egyptians then were, and on men of the capacity and ability which Cherif and others had displayed, would have been unworthy of this country, and had we attempted to do so before the recent disaster, it would not for one moment have been tolerated by the rest of Europe. He (Dr. Lyons) would therefore put aside, without further comment, such observations as those of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), made without due regard to the responsibilities of the situation. It must be borne in mind that we were executing a great trust in Egypt, and that we were responsible to the Court of public opinion of Europe with regard to such action as we took in guiding for the time the destinies of that country. We were also under an obligation by the Self-Denying Protocol of 25th June, 1882, which forbade us from profiting in any manner, territorial or other wise, by our occupation of Egypt. We should therefore have been very ill-advised if we had endeavoured to cow and coerce the Egyptian Government into obedience to our will. They were men of high accomplishments and powerful minds, knowing thoroughly the history and traditions of the country, in which, though it might not be the land of their birth, they had, at all events, lived for the greater part of their lives, and to which they had devoted their abilities. Was a man like Cherif, then, to act as a blind puppet at the will of those who were temporarily occupying his country? He was a man who had filled every public position with distinction, and who had enjoyed the confidence of those by whom he had been employed; a man evidently of great capacity, and, moreover, deeply imbued with a strong sense of the great future which he hoped the country of his adoption was to occupy in the world. Was it likely that such a man as that would yield to the force of those who were in temporary occupation of Egypt, or consent to act as a puppet at the bidding of another nation? The Blue Books would show that, more than once, he had taken an independent course, and the result had proved him to be in the right; as, for instance, in his dispute with the Consular authorities as to the rights of prisoners and the mode of their trial—a dispute in which, after a long contention, in which he displayed much knowledge of history, founding himself on the Capitulations of 1675 and 1783, he had finally worsted his opponents, and had been practically sustained by the authorities in this country. A man like that was not one to have views forced upon him, or to be prevented from following a line of action he had once taken up after due deliberation; and if hon. Gentlemen opposite had been in power, they would have found that he was not to be coerced save by reason and argument. Cherif, from the beginning, had taken the view that Egypt could occupy the Soudan for herself, and he was one of those who had always impressed on Her Majesty's Government the desirability of withdrawing the English Forces from Egypt; he was anxious that his country should stand alone as soon as possible and make a career of its own. He had the strongest confidence in the resources of the country itself; and it was not too much to say that he knew better than any of its temporary visitors what he was able to do in restoring order, and in providing for such contingencies as that of the Soudan. It was clearly his desire to have the forces of the State sufficiently organized to recover the lost Provinces. He had from the beginning conceived the idea of moving troops into the Soudan, and having put himself into communication with General Hicks, he determined, with the resources of the country itself, to carry out that expedition. He was distinctly warned by Her Majesty's Government that they could not, in any way, be responsible for any action that he took; and it also would be found that he, in the frankest and most pronounced manner, stated that he knew Her Majesty's Government would not engage in any responsibility whatever. In fact, his real desire appeared to be to disengage himself from the control and presence of Her Majesty's Forces at the earliest possible moment. He was undoubtedly himself a man of adventurous character, and he set about organizing an army for the expedition to the Soudan, and that he accomplished. He (Dr. Lyons) did not know that Cherif Pasha was not largely to be sympathized with for holding those views. Lord Dufferin himself, who had seen this very force at Cairo, had said that he did not look upon General Hicks's Force as proceeding on a forlorn hope. The desire of reconquering that country was to a large degree fulfilled, and there could be no doubt that Hicks Pasha's victories restored the power of Egypt as far as Khartoum and Sennaar, and nearly crushed the Mahdi's rebellion. In fact, up to the El Obeid disaster Hicks had a splendid record of success. Unhappily, however, he fell; but no one would be so ungenerous as to attribute his defeat to any want of ability to command. It did not appear to have been noticed that Hicks was encouraged to proceed by the friendly invitations of the Chiefs in the Soudan. King Adam of Taggala, in June, 1883, sent Ambassadors to General Hicks at Khartoum, inviting him to march rapidly through Kordofan, when he himself or Sheik Asaker would join him for an united attack on the Mahdi. General Hicks had left behind him a record of valiant deeds, and it would be ungenerous to say a word upon the final catastrophe which overwhelmed so gallant a soldier and so many of his gallant comrades. The disaster was especially painful to Irishmen, because they now knew almost to a certainty that the distinguished and gallant O'Donovan—the hero of Merv, and a true hero he was undoubtedly—was among those who had perished in the sands of the Soudan. It would have been well, perhaps, if he had been asked to aid General Hicks. He had a great knowledge of languages. He was a master of every mode of disguise; and it might have been possible to equip under his direction a small force of scouts, who would have enabled General Hicks to understand his position perfectly. Had that been done, General Hicks and his Army, might, perhaps have been saved. Hon. Members opposite complained that we had not stopped this promising expedition at an earlier period. That it would be clearly impossible to have done. Would right hon. Gentlemen opposite have taken upon themselves the responsibility of stopping the expedition of Hicks Pasha? If so, he would ask them at what day and date? Was it after the victory of the 29th of April, when he had pursued the enemy to Jabalin? Was it after the Report of General Hicks himself of the 13th May, when he stated that the Baggaza and other Chiefs had submitted and begged for forgiveness, and was able to announce that the country around both sides of the river was settled, and that he was moving on Duem? It was quite true that he had soon after to complain of want of proper supplies, but it was the Egyptian Government who were responsible for his wants. As soon as this disaster to General Hicks's Forces had taken place, a new aspect was put upon affairs. The Government had to consider whether they would send a new Army out or not. Nobody in their senses could say that the Government would have been justified in undertaking this Quixotic enterprize, of undertaking to do for the Egyptians what the Egyptians could not do for themselves, though, no doubt, Cherif thought it was still possible to reconquer the Soudan. But it must be remembered that after the disaster there was a distinct application from the Porte, asking what the English Government were going to do in Egypt, and offering to send troops there. Were we going to deal with Egypt in the same sense that France had dealt with Tunis? He believed that had we taken such a course, we should have been called to account by the public Court of Europe; indeed, as it was, he was not sure that a long iron hand from Berlin was not at work in this matter. In his opinion, Her Majesty's Government acted with great prudence; and having read the Blue Books, with a conscientious desire to arrive at a fair decision, he had no hesitation in saying that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Stafford North-cote), had he held Office and its responsibilities, could not have acted in any other way. But for that prudential action we should have been engaged in troubles with some other Power. As to the Slave Trade, he expressed the hope that full inquiries would be made, and everything that was possible done to destroy it. While wishing every success to the expedition now proceeding, he would remind the House that there were other garrisons than Tokar which needed relief; but he had no doubt that that heroic saint-like character Gordon would effect as satisfactory a settlement as could be expected. He also rejoiced that the Native Sultans were to be restored to the positions from which many years ago they were driven.

MR. MACFARLANE

said, he had listened with attention and pleasure to the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons); but he failed to gather from him what was the direct policy which he recommended. With regard to the Amendment which he (Mr. Macfarlane) had given Notice of, if it had had any reference to the policy of the Government in the Soudan, it would have disappeared from the Paper on the night the Prime Minister made his speech, because he (Mr. Macfarlane) regarded that speech as a complete vindication of the policy of the Government. He was only concerned that that policy was not enforced sooner—say, on the defeat of Hicks Pasha's Force—and a little more strongly. What he wished to call attention to was this—that up to the time, and even after the defeat of Hicks Pasha, the Government did not appear to be alive to the actual position. If they had then ordered the withdrawal of the garrisons, he had no doubt that their lives would have been saved. He believed there was nothing that would do them more harm than to continually proclaim their intention to retire from the country; nothing so much retarded the settlement of the Egyptian Question as the continually-expressed anxiety of Her Majesty's Government to get rid of the obligations they had undertaken. His view was that most of those on the Liberal side of the House who objected to the original occupation of Egypt were now convinced that, being there, we had a very serious duty to perform before we left the country. We must remain there till we had restored order. If it had not been for the defeat of Hicks, our troops would by this time have retired from the country, and that fact alone convinced him that the Government had not been fully alive as to what was necessary to be done or the length of time that would necessarily be occupied in the doing it, as was shown by the fact that they were on the point of withdrawing our troops from Egypt at the time when the difficulties in the Soudan commenced in earnest. The sooner Her Majesty's Government recognized and proclaimed the fact that they intended to establish a genuine Protectorate, the better it would be, not only for Egypt, but for this country, and for Europe in general. That view was expressed in an Amendment which he had on the Paper; but which, by the Rules of the House, he was precluded from moving at the present stage of the debate. He did not see that the Powers objected to the practical government of Egypt by England. On the contrary, he saw the foreign papers calling upon England to govern Egypt properly. On the main point his view was that, though the policy of the Government might have been vacillating and inconsistent, the country preferred the policy of the present Government to a policy which was mistaken in its very inception—namely, the policy of the late Government. It preferred the errors of the present Prime Minister to anything that could be offered them by the right hon. Baronet who had moved the Vote of Censure; and, as far as he (Mr. Macfarlane) was personally concerned, he certainly believed that the worst Liberal Government was better than the best Tory Administration could possibly be.

VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE

said, he should support the Motion of his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), though he did not think it went half far enough. It had been said that the Opposition ought to have announced an alternative policy to that of the Government. In 1855, when the present Premier, in combination with Mr. Disraeli, nearly defeated Lord Palmerston on the question of guaranteeing the Turkish Lean, no particular mode of procedure was propounded by the opponents of the Government; and, therefore, he did not think it was incumbent upon the Opposition, in challenging the policy of the Government, to propound an alternative policy. But though it might not be always necessary to lay down a de- tailed policy, there were occasions when it might be desirable to lay down a general line of policy; and it appeared to him that this was an occasion on which it would have been advisable for the opponents of the Government to indicate, at all events, a general line of policy. If they had not sufficient knowledge to lay down a general policy, it appeared to him that they could not have sufficient knowledge to criticize the policy that had been pursued. He, therefore, thought the country had a right to expect, at any rate, a clear general outline of such a policy at the hands of the responsible Leader of the Opposition. There were many indications all over the country of the unpopularity of the Government policy in Egypt, and he believed it was very much dissatisfied and uneasy at the course events had taken. The indignation meetings which had been held in various parts of the country during the last few days, and particularly the enormous one held at the Guildhall only that afternoon, showed plainly what an intensity of feeling had been aroused by the late events in Egypt. He thoroughly concurred with The Morning Post in the belief, as expressed in a leader of that morning, that— No greater mistake could be made than to suppose that the lapse of days or even weeks would efface from the mind and breast of the English people the bitter memory of the humiliation to which they were subjected when England was compelled to stand by and witness, as a consenting party, the massacre of the gallant garrison of Sinkat. What was wanted by the country was some indication that there were men on the Opposition side of the House who would give them light and leading. The country wanted, in fact, to hear a decided policy proclaimed as an alternative to that hitherto pursued by the Government. He fully agreed with the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), but not for the same reason, that they ought to have done with this political farce. The right thing for the Opposition to do, in his opinion, would be to declare boldly and distinctly in favour of a Protectorate over Egypt, but not a sham one as they had now. From his own experience in going about the country, he could say that the country was uneasy at the state of affairs at the present time. Not only was this to be gathered from Conservative journals, but newspapers which usually supported the Government had left it on this point. He would mention The Spectator for the first, The Manchester Guardian for the second, The Scotsman for the third, and The Leeds Mercury for the fourth. Those journals, he thought, had adopted a Conservative view of the policy in the East. In the Blue Books there were many evidences that England already claimed a certain kind of Protectorate. When the Khedive asked if he would be allowed to ask the Sultan for troops to put down the rebellion in the Soudan, Earl Granville replied that he might, but only provided that he got the Turks to promise that they would bear the cost of their expedition. The Prime Minister stated that the present Government had inherited from their Predecessors certain engagements, and that from those engagements it was not in the power of Her Majesty's Government to extricate itself with honour. That might be so; but the present Government also inherited engagements in other parts of the world, and on several occasions those engagements had been repudiated; therefore, why did they not reverse them in the present case? Egypt was essentially necessary to us, because it was on the high road to our Indian Possessions, and on the shortest road to our Australian Colonies. Yet the Government had done all they could to scuttle out of it, and would have done so were it not that events were too strong for them. The fact that the French left us in the lurch after the issue of the Joint Note, and thus practically renounced the Dual Control, had given us a great opportunity. That opportunity was not yet gone, and England might still, with great propriety, assume a Protectorate over Egypt. Such a Protectorate would meet with the thorough approval of the majority of persons in this Kingdom; and he did not believe that any country, except France, perhaps, was at all likely to object to a British. Protectorate over Egypt. Even in regard to that, he had no doubt that French objections could be easily overcome, while the advantages to this country would be immeasurable in freeing it from European complications by getting rid of the Eastern Question; while the additional responsibilities which we should assume would be more than compensated for by the relief in other ways to this country, and the cares of those whose duty it was to look after English interests would be largely diminished. He only regretted that his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had not boldly enunciated this policy, as by so doing he believed he would have had the whole country at his back. It was said the other day that the physician did not prescribe till called in; but neither did the patient abandon his doctor unless he was told by the new one in what respect he considered the present practitioner wrong. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) said last night that Tokar ought to have been relieved, because it was right that the thing should be done, not because the country wished it. But it was natural that the people of this country should wish that the right thing should be done; and the conclusion they had arrived at, as well as his own, was that it was the duty of the Government of this country, whether Conservative or Liberal, to assume a Protectorate—an undisguised one—over Egypt.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

said, that the noble Viscount who had just spoken (Viscount Folkestone) had done good service to the debate, by giving emphasis to the fact that the Party to which he belonged, and of which he was a distinguished Member, had shrunk from the responsibility of laying down a policy for Egypt. The public took the greatest interest in the question, as was evidenced by the very different speeches of the hon. Member for Carlow County (Mr. Macfarlane) and Newcastle (Mr. John Morley), who only agreed as to their votes. He (Mr. Arnold) hoped the debate would prove useful, though he must confess he was not sanguine in that respect if hon. Gentlemen dealt with an impossible withdrawal from Egypt, or if they spoke only of accomplished facts. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) and others had raised the stale reproach against the Liberal Party that the whole position of the Government in Egypt was a flagrant contradiction of the traditional policy of non-intervention of that Party. The presence of the British Forces in Egypt had no more connection with the doctrine of non-intervention than had their presence in any part of Africa or of Asia. When he (Mr. Arnold) heard the Prime Minister speak of Egypt, he was reminded of Mr. Mill's assertion, when writing on this subject of non-intervention, that we might "with truth lay claim to being incomparably the most conscientious of all nations in our national acts." But we sometimes acted with an evident fear and trembling, lest another and less favourable construction should be placed upon our policy. It would be true to say that no British statesman had contributed so much to establish the truth of the opinion he had quoted as the Prime Minister; and, perhaps, none had displayed a greater sensitiveness, or was more anxious to avoid the reproach of a policy of conquest. It seemed to him that hon. Members, speaking upon what were generally called Oriental peoples, were bold in assertion in proportion to their inexperience. When he heard the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock stamp and speak with pretty gestures about an Egyptian nation, which in our time had had no existence; when he heard him talk about national policy in Egypt and national heroes who were in Ceylon, he wondered whether he had any conception as to what would to-day have been the condition of Egypt if the policy which he seemed to desire and was yet afraid to advocate had been adopted. The House knew something now of the character of the people of the Egyptian Delta. Like other people, they were what their climate and conditions of life had made them. Some of his hon. Friends, like the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock, who knew little of Egypt, spoke of Arabi's movement as national in a country where there was no nation, and talked of the selection by the Egyptian people of their own form of government. In the same way his hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) had spoken; but he (Mr. Arnold) differed from them, and he would ask whether they had ever formed an opinion as to what would have happened had there been no foreign interference? The people of the Delta could no more stand up against the inhabitants of the hills of Southern Egypt than could the peasants of the plains of Thessaly or those of the Delta of the Ganges against the Hill Tribes in their vicinity. Egypt would have been the battle-ground between hordes of conquering and barbarian Arabs and an armed but naturally timid people; a struggle in which life, property, civilization, and every European interest in Egypt might have been sacrificed. Probably by this time Arab conquest would have been secure, and a state of things unworthy of the name of government would have been established at Cairo, far more degraded, even, than the recent rule in Tunis, or than that which survived in disgraceful proximity to Europe in Morocco. They might carry the principle of non-intervention so far as to order a withdrawal from India, as to leave South Africa to the Dutch and to the Kaffirs, and to give up New Zealand to the Maoris: but no serious politician had ever propounded such a doctrine, and anyone who would carefully examine Mr. Cobden's speeches and writings—and he had been the chief exponent of the policy of non-intervention—would be driven to the conclusion that he held the doctrine to apply to the soil of Europe. He (Mr. Arnold) had read the Papers upon Egypt with the conviction that the action of the Government had secured Egypt against frightful convulsions. If there were any hon. Members of the House who would contend that the Suez Canal would be safe in the event of an Arab invasion of Egypt, without the Government sending an armed force to that country, he could only express his satisfaction that such as they were not charged with the responsible guardianship of the interests of this country throughout the world. The Papers upon Egypt had been well worn; but it seemed to him that they should make an effort to analyze the political atmosphere by which they were surrounded. He was talking yesterday to an eminent foreign merchant of the City of London, who wished for a strong policy in Egypt, and had confidence in Her Majesty's Government, and he said—"What the City wishes to see is Unifieds quoted at 80." There was a great deal of truth in that observation. They all knew that there were many noisy gentlemen who scanned the speeches of the Prime Minister, not so much to ascertain the safety of the garrisons, as to measure the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman's words in the direction of responsibility and of permanent control. The right hon. Gentleman might any day be sure of being hailed by them as a Heaven-born Minister, if he would propound a scheme by which the difficulties of Egyptian finance might be relieved through the medium of British responsibility. He (Mr. Arnold), for one, did not shrink from responsibility in Egypt. He had never been one of those who had carelessly called upon the Government to withdraw the British Forces from Egypt. He was satisfied that British interference had produced, and would still continue to produce, most beneficial results to that country. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) said the Government had done nothing in Egypt for the happiness or prosperity of the country. He must have forgotten the speech of the Prime Minister. The question of irrigation he (Mr. Arnold) regarded as of the greatest importance to the country; and if there remained the solitary fact that the English Government had appointed Colonel Moncrieff to examine and improve this, their interference would be of lasting advantage. Then there were the reforms in the Finance Departments. Again, if their interference had only been marked by the advising and counselling the Egyptian Government to give up territory which was useless to them, they would have performed beneficial service. They must not forget that Egypt was one of the world's highways; and he maintained that it was a wise and just policy to abandon the Soudan. They saw that Egyptian Government out of the reach of all publicity and control was worse than the rule of the tribes, and that it could only be continued by the most cruel conscription and the most wasteful expenditure. It was estimated by Blum Pasha that the cost of the Soudan to Egypt in 1883 was not less than £600,000. That being so, the policy of the Government entitled them, apart even from higher considerations, to the good opinion of those whose ideas of Egyptian policy centered in the desire that Unifieds should be quoted on the Stock Exchange at 80. The policy of the Government in the Soudan had throughout had the approval of the interesting moralist and soldier who was now advancing to Khartoum. A private letter from General Gordon, which came to light a few days ago, and which was written on his voyage to Egypt, shows how fully his private sentiments accorded with the action of the Government. General Gordon wrote— In re the mission I go on, it is no secret the Government have decided that the guaranteeing of any future government of the Soudan would he too onerous and not present any advantages, so they will let the people revert to their old Sultans. This is to me just, for unless we secure them good government we ought not to conquer them or allow others to do so. Consequently, I accept their decision, and I go to try to arrange with them in a quiet way as to their future affairs. It is only advice I can give, of course. I am hopeful of success, for they are sharp enough to see I have no other motive than their welfare. In May of last year Sir Edward Malet informed Cherif Pasha that Her Majesty's Government were in no way responsible for the operations in the Soudan; and in January of this year Lord Granville, with a far more true acceptance of the logic of facts, thundered at the head of Cherif Pasha the despatch which directed that it should be made clear to the Egyptian Ministers and Governors of Provinces that— The responsibility which for the time rests on England obliges Her Majesty's Government to insist on the adoption of the policy which they recommend."—[Egypt, No. 1 (1884), p. 176). So long as the Government maintained a garrison in Egypt they fed the base of all military operations; and he was inclined to regret that the Government was not better informed of the real state of things in the Western Soudan, and that the expedition of General Hicks was not prohibited. If it had been stopped the Government would have encountered a storm from the Tory Opposition and from the old Egyptian Party at Cairo. The former would have said that they were encouraging the Slave Trade, and the latter that they were injuriously reducing the Khedive's authority, and that the directions of the British Government were opposed to the Firman which gave power to the Khedive Tewfik upon the condition that he preserved the integrity of the Egyptian Dominions. There was no greater or more common delusion than to suppose that the Slave Trade could be stopped by isolated operations in the Soudan or in Central Africa; for so long as it was profitable so long would it be carried on. No one admired General Gordon more than he (Mr. Arnold) did; but he had never suffered from the delusion that the General's previous operations in the Soudan were permanently effective against slavery. The Government could do far more to kill slavery by acting in the Red Sea and in Egypt Proper than it was possible to accomplish in the Soudan. The incompetence of the Egyptians was the most conspicuous feature of the Papers now before them. At a time when he was wasting £600,000 a-year in the Soudan, Cherif Pasha wrote an almost ridiculous despatch congratulating Egypt on the saving of £70,000 by the proposed departure of 4,000 British troops. There could be no doubt that, so far as Egypt Proper was concerned, the withdrawal was safe and prudent; but there could also be no doubt that a storm had arisen in the South which might have led to the overthrow of all the newly-established order in Egypt had it not been for the presence of British arms. The incompetence of the Egyptian Government was the most striking feature in the Papers now before the House; and he could not believe that any hon. Gentleman who had studied them could possibly condemn Her Majesty's Government for not having relieved Sinkat. He certainly could not find a single trace of "vacillation or inconsistency" in the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote) had made a very bad choice of language in drawing up his Amendment. He only regretted that the wise and excellent policy which, from first to last, the Government had accepted as to the Soudan was not forced upon the Egyptian Government last August. They had all learnt something more of the ineptitude of the Egyptian Government from what had occurred. He believed that but for the presence of British force, and for the peaceful mission of General Gordon, this year would have seen the destruction of Cairo and the ravage of all Lower Egypt by hordes of Arabs from the South. The evidently conscientious anxiety of the Government to avoid a policy of conquest in Egypt must receive honourable appreciation from the European Powers. In most difficult circumstances they would also be sure of a strong, loyal, and successful support in that House. He rejoiced to observe how far stronger was the sense of responsibility in the House of Commons than in "another place." The late Leader of the Conservative Party, speaking from the seat now occupied by the right hon. Baronet, described the House of Commons as "the principal depository of power in the State." A Legislative Chamber had passed into a dangerous condition when it was irresponsible for the making and unmaking of Administrations. It was that great Constitutional change which, above and beyond all other circumstances, should inspire the House with that sense of responsibility which made the dignity and the character of a Legislature—a responsibility which, viewing not only the facts of the case under discussion, but all those of social and political concern, would lead to the triumphant rejection of the proposal to censure Her Majesty's Government.

MR. GUY DAWNAY

said, it was with semi-sympathetic compassion that he watched the faces of hon. Members opposite, during the speech of the Prime Minister, on Tuesday evening last—that he watched them hanging upon his words, hoping against hope that the right hon. Gentleman would discover for them some arguments they had failed to discover for themselves to justify the policy with which they had identified themselves—some sophistries which might serve to salvo and lull their own less casuistic consciences. The speech of the Prime Minister must, indeed, have brought conviction to every honest mind in that House—a conviction apparent in the hollow and half-hearted cheers which greeted that speech—a conviction that all that casuistry and all that oratory could do to defend the position of the Government had been done and had failed—a conviction that facts and truth were mightier than eloquence and rhetoric. He must confess he had not been able to find one single defensive argument in all the speeches of hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House which had not been already utilized by the right hon. Gentleman; while he failed to discover one single valid reason which could serve to acquit the Government on the real vital point of the charge the Opposition made against them—in all the lengthened series of words by which the Prime Minister found means to obscure, but failed to excuse, that policy of shelve and sham, which had now culminated in that last ghastly tragedy on the shores of the Red Sea—as ghastly a tragedy as ever shocked a generous nation, or shook the waning popularity of a guilty Government. On the rare occasions on which he trespassed upon the attention of the House, it was with natural diffidence that he did so; but that diffidence was increased on the present occasion by a feeling of such keen shame and indignation at the events they were discussing—a feeling so sharpened in his own case by a somewhat lengthened experience in the Soudan and amongst its Native tribes—that it was with extreme difficulty that he even attempted to approach so humiliating a subject in what might be considered the proper spirit of dispassionate argument, and cool and collected criticism. That monomaniacal policy of abandonment, which seemed to be the one and only policy which this Government were capable of originating in any part of the African Continent—which had been proclaimed in so public a manner, and a manner so disastrously ill-timed—had brought us to this—that the only resource of those who still felt as Englishmen on this subject was to vent their feeling in what was necessarily, in great measure, an ineffectual condemnation of the already irreparable blunder of the past. They could only discuss the subject in a spirit of Party debate—not, perhaps, wholly useless in the effect it might have on future developments of policy, but as useless to alter the past as an academic discussion on the fall of the Byzantine Empire. They could only criticize and denounce, while all the time the wave of triumphant barbarism was sweeping onwards, rolling back and destroying, on the sands of the Nubian Desert, the abandoned wrecks of civilization. They could only censure and condemn, while the forsaken garrisons, which had so long and so gallantly held Tokar and Sinkat, that had so long fought famine within and a fierce and fanatic foe without, had at length been forced to recognize that England's arm was indeed shortened, that it could not—or, her spirit broken, that she would not—save. And now one of those garrisons wove lying flesh-less skeletons, or festering corpses round the fort they held so nobly and so well; while the other, in spite of the now too tardy efforts for relief, had in all human probability seen their last chance of help annihilated; together with that unresisting rabble, whom the Government permitted to be sent to scream out their poor coward breaths under the spears of the Hadendowas—and themselves perhaps, at that very moment, were but waiting in mute despair under the Desert starlight, watching till" Morning's Beams should rise and give them, too, light to die." The Prime Minister had rebuked the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire a few nights ago for "speaking of Tokar and Sinkat as if they were the only garrisons whose fate we had to consider." They did not, however, think they were the only garrisons whose fate they had to consider, but they were the only garrisons whose instant fate for life or death the Government had in their power not only to consider, but to control. They were not likely to forget that the fate of all the garrisons in the Soudan had for months past depended on the capacity of the Government to meet an emergency against which they had been forewarned. That was one charge against them; but the graver and more pressing charge was that day by day for months past had the increasingly insupportable straits to which Tokar and Sinkat were being reduced been more and more clearly known. Day by day had the Government's duty in regard to them been more clearly and more shamefully neglected; till now, when amidst a chorus of reproach and indignation, which every county and town and village in the Kingdom helped to swell, they recognized in bitter humiliation that it was too late. The Prime Minister, during last Session, in explaining away a statement of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for War as to the probable duration of our occupation of Egypt, had made the following statement:— The definition of the objects for which we are in Egypt has been explicitly made upon more than one occasion to the House. We are there for the establishment of order and stability. We are there for the improvement of the institutions of the country. …. We determine, with the support of Parliament continued to us, to accomplish as far as depends upon us—and I believe it very mainly depends upon us—the purposes, important for Egypt and the world, for which we are in Egypt. The right hon. Gentleman now included amongst these "purposes, important to Egypt and to the world," the aban- donment to the slave-traders of the greatest slave-hunting area in the world. He had listened intently to the remarks of the hon. Member for Newcastle and the hon. Member for Salford on this subject. The former had drawn a harrowing picture of fellaheen villagers, torn away from happy homes and wailing wives, to be sent to put down the Slave Trade as soldiers in the Soudan. The press-gang system, however, had hardly been abolished long enough in this country for them to hold up their hands in too high and holy horror over the hardships of Egyptian conscription. But, he would ask, was it necessary, if the Government used their re-organizing influence properly, that the Soudan Army should be recruited in such a manner, or that it should be recruited in Lower Egypt at all? Could the hon. Member be ignorant that it was the Soudan itself that supplied the only reliable troops which Egypt possessed—that the Soudanese were a people by no means averse to enlisting as soldiers; and that the slave-hunters had no difficulty in enlisting any number as their soldiers to hunt slaves; and that these same Natives were the men with whom Gordon turned the tables on the slave-traders, by employing them to put down the Slave Trade, and to hunt the slave-traders. Other hon. Members had told them that the slave traffic could best be put an end to by taking measures to cut off the demand in Egypt rather than the supply in the Soudan, and had advocated efficient cruising in the Red Sea as the best preventive measure. This might be true in regard to Egyptian and Arabian trade; but did the House understand what the abandonment of the Soudan meant? Did they realize that it involved practically the constituting an enormous Central African slave-holding Empire on the borders of the great slave-hunting territory? Perhaps, however, the Prime Minister included this amongst the "improvements of the institutions of the country." Did he also include amongst the "purposes, important to Egypt and the world, for which we were in Egypt," the abandonment to barbaric anarchy and desolation of all the fertile lands of the Eastern Soudan; where, if they had but used the powers that Heaven had intrusted to them, so easily might they have removed the abuses—the well- known and acknowledged abuses—due to a corrupt and irresponsible Administration, and by so doing have knit together a diminished, but reformed, Soudan to a regenerate Egypt in the firm bonds of gratitude and content? No; they had preferred to resign the country. That was their idea of the "establishment of order and stability." Such professions would now be laughable, if they could read them without visions of starving or massacred garrisons, of slave-hunting raids, of extinguished hopes of civilization; if they could read them without a blush upon their cheeks for the discredit which had been entailed on this country by such a complete and ghastly failure of the Government scheme for the rehabilitation of Egypt. It had been argued by hon. Members opposite that the Soudan was not Egypt. They could not, however, thus creep and crawl out of their obligations. As well might they say that India was not England. True; but it was a vital and integral part of the British Empire. From the moment that British troops marched into Cairo on that September evening—from the moment that they set to work to restore the Khedive to his tottering Throne, supported by their own victorious bayonets—from the moment that they set to work to re-organize a defensive force to replace that which their own swords had destroyed—from that moment they did take upon themselves—however diplomatically they might evade it, however directly they might deny it—the responsibility in the sight of God and man for the whole Egyptian Empire, for every foot of territory over which the Egyptian flag then waved. He did not say, he did not think, that it was their duty to have retained possession of one foot of such territory; but he did say that duty and policy alike demanded that they should have acknowledged and consistently maintained their authority; or else that by a well-considered and rational scheme of withdrawal they should have contracted speedily and definitely their responsibilities, and the responsibilities of Egypt in those regions, instead of waiting to be thrashed and hooted out of the country, as he had seen some prowling boast of prey stoned out of au Arab village. He should have thought that by this time the Government might have learnt that Nemesis never failed to overtake duties disowned and responsibilities renounced—that they might have learnt by this time to— All such cowards' cant despise, And learnt that to be brave is to he wise. He should have thought that the first idea which would have suggested itself, not only to the mind of responsible statesman-ship, but to the common sense of ordinary intellect, would have been to have recognized, the moment we were masters of Lower Egypt, the extent of the problem which faced us in the Soudan, and that the first step in consequence of such a recognition would have been to have despatched General Gordon to the Soudan to resume the government of that Province—where, as he (Mr. Guy Dawnay) personally could boar witness, he was almost worshipped by the Natives—which his tact and skill, his justice and liberality had governed with such marvellous success, and where, under his returning rule, no such event as a general rising of the Natives could have come within the sphere of possibility. The Prime Minister had dismissed this point with a jesting allusion to the difficulty of marrying two people, each equally averse to the union. He thought, however, that the House must have quickly recognized the inadequacy—the delusive inadequacy—of such a fallacious explanation. Did anyone on the Treasury Bench, or in that House, or in that country, dare to say of General Gordon that, in all his self-denying and heroic career, he had ever been known, on the score of aversion, to refuse to respond to the call of duty, whether that duty came to him as a Christian man, or as an English soldier? And as to any aversion on the part of Tewfik, it did really seem to him that the Government in Egypt had become infected with all the attributes of the ostrich of the Egyptian Deserts. There was the same abnormal digestive capacity—a digestion that enabled them to swallow and assimilate an amount of disgrace and contempt that would choke any more refined and more delicate organism. There was the same instant and instinctive resource in moments of danger—unequalled speed in running away; while the attribute which they possessed in the fullest and most imitative perfection was that of burying their heads in the Egyptian sands when an emergency had to be met, and of re- fusing to face even the most vivid and apparent facts. It was under the latter head that he would class this alleged aversion on Tewfik's part to Gordon's appointment. Who was this Tewfik, that in October, 1882, he should have refused the advice, as they termed it, of the English Government? Was he not then being held up by both arms, so to speak, upon his shaky Throne? And would he have dared, or dreamed of daring, to oppose even the gentlest hint of that Government on whom he was then leaning for support? Was he not the same Tewfik, in fact, who, 14 months later, when one might have supposed his Throne to have been more secure, was forced not merely to accept an appointment to the Governorship of the Soudan, but against his will to abandon the whole country, and in consequence to dismiss a patriotic and opposing Ministry? He pretended to no argumentative skill; but it did seem to him that there was not one of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman that could not be eviscerated with equal ease. This non-sending of General Gordon to the Soudan was the first sin of blundering omission. The second, and still graver sin, was the ever permitting General Hicks to start on his ill-fated expedition, fated from the first to disaster and defeat, and to be the forerunner of all the disastrous consequences that had ensued. To anyone who could realize the circumstances of that expedition—the difficulties of camel transport in that country, the difficulty of conducting large bodies of men through a region watered but by wells, and those at long intervals—to anyone who knew the rate at which Egyptian soldiers fired away their ammunition at even a distant enemy, and could appreciate the numbers of the fanatic tribes that were set to oppose his march—to any such the expedition of General Hicks, with a force so small as to oblige him to cut himself adrift from his communications, did seem one of the most forlorn hopes that was ever led by a brave Englishman to certain destruction. To say that the Government, who, after the destruction of Hicks's force, and in consequence of that destruction, actually ordered the abandonment of the Soudan, could not have prevented, if they had chosen, that most ill-fated march of those doomed men—that they would not have done so, if they had appreciated, as the Blue Books showed they might have appreciated, the consequences that must ensue—to say that was to advance au argument unworthy of serious discussion. No; the country understood the real reasons well enough now. The Government had thought that they could safely and cheaply wash their hands of the Soudan question—that it would, at least, last out their time in Egypt. They had been like children building a house of cards. If only the frail structure could have remained steady for one moment—the one moment necessary for them to scuttle out of the country—to call Europe to witness the fabric of re-organization they had established in Egypt, before that hollow and feeble fabric fell—to point out across the waters of the Mediterranean the mirage of Egyptian peace and contentment and reform, before that delusive image faded away into the old dead Desert scene—their end would have been attained. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in his speech at the Mansion House, was just uttering the first note of exultation, as he balanced the last card, and prepared to withdraw the supporting finger, when the old trumpery edifice crumbled in the dust. The news of the annihilation of the Egyptian—but British led—Forces at Kashgil and at Tokar did startle the country into some appreciation of the gravity of the situation, of the extent of the blunders which had thus culminated in calamity. But what step did the Government take? They did but the more loudly and the more persistently disclaim their responsibility. Not only did they disclaim their responsibility, but they went out of their way to seal the fate of the Soudan, to take away the last chances from the beleaguered garrisons, by publicly announcing and ordering the abandonment of the Soudan. The old panacea of running away was, in this emergency, the one, and instant, and only resource of the power and the statesmanship of England. No Gordon was despatched at once, while there might still have been time, to the scene of his former success—no troops were collected instantly from Aden and from Egypt, disembarked at Suakim, to at least relieve Tokar and Sinkat, and in doing so to give confidence to the many tribes that, as the Blue Books showed, would then have remained loyal. No; such a common-sense line of action was far too resolute and self-reliant a course for the present Micawber Ministry. It was true one or two gunboats had been allowed to lie off Suakim, and to fire some shells into the Desert, as if on purpose to show that it was not because they considered it no concern of theirs that the Government refused to send a land force, but merely because they intended to follow—wilfully, deliberately, determined to follow—the degrading details of a cold-blooded and cowardly economy, and of a short-sighted selfishness, at tile expense of the lives of those garrisons they might so easily have saved, at the expense of that blood-guiltiness which seemed, the more they tried to evade and to disclaim it, to dog the footsteps of the Government. Who but the Government were answerable for the slaughter of Baker's Force? It was alleged that Baker had telegraphed that he was fairly confident of success. Did they not know that he had been forbidden to advance to the relief of Tokar unless he could say he was confident of success; and did they think that a gallant General like Baker would have been content, however small and weak his force, to have remained inactive in Suakim, while he knew the starving garrisons were waiting for and relying on his aid? The condition of the force at Suakim was well known to all; for weeks it had been a matter of jesting comment in the newspapers, and of picture-paper caricature. Were the Government alone ignorant of the material of which that force was composed? They knew that Nile villagers had been dragged down from their homes, chained round the neck like felons, to be sent as soldiers to the Soudan. He apologized to every hon. and gallant Member of the House for using the word "soldiers" in connection with that miserable mob of demented cowards, whose paroxysm of panic-stricken poltroonery, it was true, disgraced and belied all the ideas and instincts of manhood, but without exculpating the Government, who, in permitting the employment of such a force, deliberately fore-doomed the relief of Tokar to failure and defeat, deliberately permitted—no, compelled—British generalship, able and gallant as that generalship was, to be associated so disastrously—he would say so dangerously associated—with the ridicule of such a rout. It was not very willingly that he trespassed on the attention of the House with remarks only of an accusatory nature, though, Heaven knew, the Government had made it as difficult for them to act or advise for the future, as they had made it facile to denounce the past. He did not conceal that his own individual opinion was that the real solution of the Egyptian problem was to be found in our facing our responsibilities, and calling things by their right names—in our abandoning our present false and sham position, and assuming that Protectorate of Egypt which was day by day being more clearly forced upon this country. He must protest, however, against the announced intention of expunging from the area of even the semi-civilized world the whole enormous Province of the Soudan. There was no necessity for the abandonment of the Eastern Province. He might claim to know that country as well as any living Englishman, for he had travelled and hunted over it from Suakim to Fazogli, and from the Abyssinian Mountains to the Blue Nile; and he asserted deliberately that for Egypt to resign that territory would be a gigantic blunder. He could not believe that General Gordon was really in favour of the complete evacuation of the Soudan. He had read the Memorandum which had just been put into the hands of hon. Members, and in that Memorandum of General Gordon he detected some little sarcasm in the opening paragraph. There was, however, in the last paragraph, two remarks on which he must take leave to differ even from that gallant officer. General Gordon said that—"Her Majesty's Government would leave the Soudan Natives as God had placed them. They were not forced to fight amongst themselves." He asserted that they had no right to say, "They were not forced to fight amongst themselves," and then a few months later to shrug their shoulders and lament the existence of that human nature which would lead the Natives to cut each other's throats. Still less right had they to say—"They would leave them as God had placed them." The country was not as God had placed it; but its condition had grown up out of the lust of aggrandizement of Mehemet Ali, supplemented by the conquests of those murdering slave-hunters, who had been the real conquerors of the Soudan, and confirmed by a humanitarian movement in this country, which had for its object, by the annexation of the slave-trading countries, to put down the Slave Trade. He could not agree with those expressions of General Gordon; but he agreed with him that now the Western Soudan must be given up, though, as a nation, we could not escape either the responsibility or the reproach of the manner of its abandonment. He could not, however, hold the same opinion as to the Eastern Soudan, nor could such a policy be supported on financial, national, or philanthropic grounds. The people East of the Blue Nile were, as a rule, peaceable and orderly, and under Gordon's rule there had been no difficulty in maintaining their peaceful and contented Government with but a small force of Native Soudanese troops. It was a well-watered country for the most part, and its soil, not only along the rivers, but in many parts of the Provinces of Taka and Sennaar, was of extraordinary richness. The only large tribes that difficulty need be expected from were the Hadendowa tribes, and those living along the Berber and Kassala routes; and a little judicious arrangement—following that one defeat, which, if we were to hold even Suakim, must sooner or later be given—would smooth away all difficulties by insuring the allegiance of the more important tribes, whose readiness to quarrel amongst themselves had hitherto, at least, equalled their zeal in repulsing the invading Egyptian. The Western Soudan was irrevocably gone; but Khartoum itself would well repay retention and defence, as the point in which all Equatorial trade must ever centre. Khartoum, with the Northern and fertile portion of the country between the White and Blue Rivers, with the country to the East of the Blue Nile, watered by its tributaries and bounded by the Abyssinian Mountains, formed naturally part and parcel of Egypt; and, while its richness was unquestioned, it would be inexpensive to retain. So thoroughly was the Eastern Soudan linked to Egypt by nature that almost every particle of the prolific soil which grew the teeming and luxuriant crops of Lower Egypt had been brought down by the Blue Nile and its tributaries to enrich and fertilize the Delta. He did not deny that now some expense would follow the attempt to pacify the Eastern Province; but all that was wanted but a short time ago to have retained it as the rich possession of that Egypt which we had bound ourselves to defend was ordinary wisdom in the first place—ordinary energy in the next place—ordinary humanity at the last. For wisdom they had had apathetic folly, and the utter want of all ordinary foresight and ordinary common sense. For energy they had had apathetic folly, and the cowardly repudiation of responsibility. For humanity, the records of humanity were written in those corpses which were now gorging the vultures which had so long sailed and circled expectant over the famished garrison—the doomed and desperate defenders of the gallant little fortress of Sinkat. He thanked the House for the patience with which it had listened to him. It might he that he had failed to attain that level of impassive reasoning which befitted the atmosphere of that House; but it should be remembered, and it should win some pardon for himself and for others who felt like him, that while they had been debating, while Cabinet Ministers but a few nights ago were dining rather than debate, that men, brave men, women and little children, were dying—dying of starvation within sound of the English guns, dying in one case, as they knew now, amid the horrors of an unsparing massacre, dying with contempt and curses in their hearts on the inhuman apathy of England, and England's Government.

MR. J. K. CROSS

Sir, I would ask the House to comedown from the lofty realms of imagination to which the last speaker has soared, and return to the plain platform of common sense. I have listened carefully to the whole of the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Guy Dawnay), and the impression it leaves upon my mind is this—that if we could only have had the advantage or experience of the hon. Gentleman to set against that of General Gordon, perhaps we might have been saved from sending that hero to Khartoum, and we might have had the advantage of the services of the hon. Member himself. But I am bound to say that the advice the hon. Member has given us with regard to what should be done in the Eastern Soudan, and through the whole of the Soudan district, is so entirely different from that which General Gordon has given, that I find myself bound to repudiate the advice of the hon. Gentleman. I must, however, really ask that we should return for a short time to the discussion which was inaugurated the other day by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote). Tonight we have had several speeches, and but few of them have been directed to the Resolution before the House. We have had various speeches from hon. Members wandering over a very wide field. Hon. Members have, in some instances, asked us to consider whether it is desirable to declare a Protectorate over Egypt or not. They have also gone into very wide discussions on various subjects connected with the possible advance of the hordes from the Deserts in Central Africa; and they have pictured to themselves what would happen should these hordes appear in the neighbourhood of Cairo; but we have had no practical speeches directed to the point which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon himself entered upon when he originated the debate. Now, what is the charge against the Government upon this occasion? It is that by our vacillation we have been the cause of the disasters to the Egyptian troops in the Soudan. Well, I ask the House how this charge has been supported. I listened with a great deal of attention to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition; and I am bound to say that from the beginning to the end of his speech there was not one single instance of vacillation given. The gravamen of the charge of the right hon. Gentleman was that, being a power in Egypt, Her Majesty's Government should either have seen that Hicks Pasha was properly supported, or we should have prevented him from advancing. So far from the right hon. Gentleman showing that there was any vacillation in our conduct with regard to Hicks Pasha, until the time of his defeat, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman accused us of anything of the kind. There were, however, other speeches made in which the accusations against us were more defined. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), I think, was the principal speaker who charged us definitely with vacillation. He said that if the Government had insisted, in November, 1882, on their advice being followed, they would have saved all the lives which were lost a year later in the Soudan. In a despatch which was sent on the 3rd of November, 1882, and which awaited the arrival of Lord Dufferin at Cairo, Lord Granville informed His Excellency that Her Majesty's Government were not prepared to undertake any expedition into the Soudan; and that this was fully understood by the Egyptian Government is shown by a letter addressed by Sir Edward Malet to Cherif Pasha, informing him that Her Majesty's Government were in no way responsible for the proceedings in the Soudan, or for the appointment of General Hicks. These declarations were again and again repeated. If Her Majesty's Government undertook to do a certain work they cannot be blamed because they declined to annex the Equator, even if such a step were recommended by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Until the time when the news of General Hicks's defeat reached Cairo, on the 21st of November, 1883, it was impossible to charge Her Majesty's Government with vacillation. The Egyptian Government were left in no doubt as to the position in which they would be placed if the force under General Hicks should be destroyed. It has been said by some hon. Members, and by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock particularly, that we should have interfered at an earlier period than we did. The noble Lord also says that we should have followed the advice of Sir Charles Wilson, and let the Indian troops defeat the Mahdi before they left Egypt. It is impossible, however, that we could have followed both of these two courses. The news of the defeat of Hicks Pasha reached us on the 21st of November. I will put it to the House whether, if we had been sitting here on the 20th of November last, before any news had come of the defeat of Hicks Pasha, what would the reply have been if the Prime Minister had come down and proposed that the Egyptian Government should be ordered to evacuate the Soudan? I will put it to the House if there would have been one cry of "Aye" to the proposition in the whole of the House of Commons? Well, I will put another question. If, on the other hand, it had been proposed to send on the same day 10,000 or 15,000 troops to hold the Soudan for Egypt, is there one sensible man in this House who would not have said "No" to such a proposition? Neither of these courses would have been followed, or could have been followed, by the Government at the time. No one in the House would have given permission for the Government either to order the evacuation of the Soudan, or the sending of 10,000 or 15,000 men there. There were three possibilities open to the Government—compelling a retreat or sending troops. You would refuse them both. What, then, is the alternative? The only possible one was to adopt that taken by Her Majesty's Government—to allow events to take their course. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh; but they have not pointed out any other course. You may tell me it is possible you might have taken limited action, and laid down a point regarding which you would say—"Thus far and no farther." What are you going to say to this demand? You would have said—"If you are going to a limited distance—the distance to which I am going—are you going to support me on that point." That is what we have to contend with. When we said to Egypt that she should confine herself to a certain line, it involved the consideration whether we should defend her up to that line. What the Government did was this—they did not insist upon any action in the Soudan until it became a source of serious danger to Egypt Proper and the Egyptian Government. But when Egypt appealed for troops to enable them to hold the Soudan, it then became necessary to insist that our interests and liabilities should not be extended by the practical annexation of territory up to the Equator. I said there were three courses open to Her Majesty's Government. I gather from some of the speeches that the advice given by Sir Charles Wilson was that troops should be sent to the Soudan. ["Hear, hear!"] When I spoke of sending troops to the Soudan for defence, some hon. Members opposite seemed to acquiesce in that proposition. I ask, for what purpose were they to be sent? Would they have been sent for the purpose of supporting the Egyptians there under our protection? The hon. Gentleman who spoke last seemed to suppose that we were going to leave the Soudan to revert to a state of barbarism; and he pressed strongly on the House the necessity for some expedition to travel through Central Africa to prevent so dreadful a consummation.

MR. GUY DAWNAY

I said nothing of the sort. I said that one defeat, which we should be obliged to inflict in any case, would be quite sufficient to quiet all the tribes in Eastern Soudan.

MR. J. K. CROSS

Will the hon. Member be kind enough to tell me the distance from the coast line at Suakim to the Sennaar district? I think the House will see what little connection it is possible there can be between the neighbourhoods of Suakim and Sennaar. Why should we go there?

MR. GUY DAWNAY

In answer to the hon. Member, I repeat that the only warlike tribes whom we should have to contend with in the Eastern Soudan are the Hadendowas; all the others are pastoral tribes.

MR. J. K. CROSS

The hon. Member calls them "pastoral tribes." And they have been under the rule of Egypt, I suppose, during the last few years, and have been so peaceful and happy that they would like to have Egyptian rule there. Those tribes regard the Egyptian rule as an alien rule, and the rule of an alien race is hard to bear when it is good; but it is worse when it is bad. We have some chances of establishing a stable Government in Egypt Proper; but if we had, at the same time, to organize and supervise the vast region of the Soudan, we could not get out of Central Africa for many generations. But it is said by hon. Gentlemen opposite that by our action we have stimulated the Slave Trade; and that in withdrawing the Egyptian forces we shall give over the country to desolation and turn it into a desert. Well, Sir, what is the history of the Slave Trade? What is the history of the Soudan under Egyptian rule? I intend to ask you to consult the best authorities; but I need not ask the House to go very far for information. If we ask General Gordon, or Sir Samuel Baker, or Dr. Schweinfürth, it will be found that they do not give the peaceful character to that district which has been given by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Dawnay). General Gordon says that he spent some years there. Twenty years ago a hundred villages were standing on the Eastern side of the river; but now they are swept away, and the whole of the Eastern shore has been turned into a desert waste. Sir Samuel Baker, describing the deterioration which had taken place between his two visits in 1864 and 1872, says the country had been quite depopulated by razzias for slaves, and that it was impossible to describe the change which had taken place since he had first visited the place. Formerly the people were neatly dressed, and were contented; but now they have all disappeared, and not a village is to be seen. And this is the result of the settlement of Khartoum traders. This is what the hon. Gentleman wants to bring back again and perpetuate, and it is precisely what General Gordon has been sent to do away with.

MR. GUY DAWNAY

I referred to the Western Soudan.

MR. J. K. CROSS

This is right in the centre of the Soudan if you like. What does General Gordon say? He writes from El Fasheim, the Western Soudan, many hundreds of miles away from where I am describing. Writing on the 19th of June, 1879, after he had been some very considerable time Governor General, he says that during four or five years the loss of life in Darfour, owing to the condition of the country, was not less than 150,000 men. But if this restoration of the Soudan were desirable, I may ask, I think, very pertinently, what would be the size of the operations which you would have to undertake in order to bring back the Soudan to civilization? I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman understands the extent of the Soudan. If he means the district entirely East of the White Nile, he would have to cover an enormous tract of territory; and if he takes the East of the Blue Nile, that is not what Egypt wished to preserve, but what lies East of the White Nile; and because we refused that, they declined to accept the advice of Her Majesty's Government. What is the size of the whole of the operations you would have to undertake? The size of the Soudan is somewhat equal to this—If you draw a line from St. Petersburg to Bordeaux, and another from London to Constantinople, you will intersect a country about the size of the Soudan And what is the character of the country? The hon. Gentleman opposite said it was really fertile. No doubt parts of it are extremely fertile, from Khartoum to Sennaar. But it is a long way to get there; and what is the country at large? I have described the length of the lines you would have to cover; and if you were to suppose that 19–20ths of the population of the districts of Europe I have described were taken away, and a few deserts of sand and rocks, varying from 50,000 to 150,000 square miles. were put amongst them, you would have an effective picture of what the Soudan is. And now let us see how you would approach this Eden of Africa. You would approach it by two routes. There is a direct continuous route from Cairo to Khartoum at least 1,450 miles in length. You may shorten this route, if you like, by going across the Desert which General Gordon crossed the other day. By that route you make a road to Khartoum from Cairo of about 1,200 miles. And, besides, you have to cross a considerable stretch of Desert. Is it possible to traverse such a Desert with any number of troops? Certainly not. You have to go over a Desert of 230 miles without one drop of water, except a single well in the middle, which is only fit for camels to drink at; and it has been well described by Sir Samuel Baker, who crossed it in 1866 with his wife and two attendants, and required no fewer than 15 or 16 camels to enable them to do so. Sir Samuel, writing of it, says— A few hours from Kororko the misery of the scene surpassed description. Glowing like a furnace, the vast extent of yellow sand stretched to the horizon. As far as the eye could reach were waves like a stormy sea—grey, cold-looking waves in the burning heat, but no drop of water; it appeared as though a sudden curse had turned the raging sea to stone. Then he goes on to describe how an Egyptian regiment was lost in crossing this Desert, their parched and withered corpses being found some time afterwards by the Arabs sent upon the search. This is not very pleasant reading; and if we had to send troops there, we should have to send them by the Red Sea route to Suakim or Berber, which is not so much better after all. I find it described by the Intelligence Department to the War Office as a Desert of 240 miles, across which the different stages are two and a-half days' journey each. You then come in marches of two days each to wells, at which not more than 200 men and their horses can be supplied with water. So I think that if hon. Members would consider what difficulties would have to be encountered in going to and approaching this place, they will see that it is a much more difficult task than what they would deem it is advisable to undertake in sending troops to the interior. It would be impossible to send more than 200 men at a time by that route. In regard to the destruction of General Hicks's army, up to the receipt of the news of his defeat the duty of Her Majesty's Representative in Cairo was, as far as possible, to avoid Soudan affairs; but the destruction of General Hicks and his army opened up a new question. What would be the result of the success of the Mahdi? The result seriously affected us. Immediately the news of the defeat arrived, the Egyptian Ministry sought the advice of Sir Evelyn Baring, and of several Generals in Cairo. No news had come from Hicks Pasha before the 21st of November; there was a despatch dated October 3rd, which was afterwards found in the office of the Egyptian Minister of War, and it is to be regretted that it was not sent to Sir Evelyn Baring before it was. It appears to have escaped the notice of Cherif Pasha. I really do not understand why it should not have been forwarded to Sir Evelyn Baring. But even before the receipt of the news of Hicks Pasha's defeat, Sir Evelyn Baring had telegraphed to Her Majesty's Government at home that it was quite possible some disaster had befallen General Hicks, and wishing for instructions, drawing attention to the fact that, if General Hicks should be defeated, the wiser course for the Egyptian Government to follow would be to withdraw to whatever point on the Nile they could be sure of defending, although a great impulse might thereby be given to the Slave Trade. In reply, Her Majesty's Government recommended the abandonment of the Soudan within certain limits. The news of Hicks Pasha's defeat arrived on the 21st of November, and on the 23rd of November it was stated that the Egyptian Government intended to hold Khartoum, and keep open the Berber route, and that orders were to be sent to the other garrisons to concentrate there. Now, many hon. Members have assorted that if these orders for the garrisons to concentrate had been sent at the proper time, there would have been no doubt that they would have secured their return back to Egypt; but when it was found that the orders to concentrate on the part of the Egyptian Government were given at that date, it seems to me that the ground is cut from under their feet when they contend that it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to do so at that time. Sir Evelyn Wood, as we can well imagine, was in a state of great anxiety—an anxiety such as it is impossible to describe; but at last, after nearly a week's delay, orders were sent. It is only natural that the Egyptian Government should wish to do everything in their power to keep their territory, and to induce us to help them. It became more than ever necessary to hold firmly to our resolve to leave the Soudan alone. The news from Khartoum being bad, and the demoralization of the Egyptian Government great, it became necessary, on the 26th of November, to consider what measures should be taken. Sir Evelyn Wood, General Stephenson, General Baker, and Sir Evelyn Baring met and discussed the military situation. They came to the conclusion that Khartoum would probably have to be evacuated; but that it should be held long enough to allow the more advanced posts and garrisons to concentrate in the manner proposed. They also came to the conclusion that the Egyptian Government should send such a force as they could to Suakim. From day to day the Egyptian Government continued to hope that something might be done to aid them to hold the Soudan; but on December 12—and to this I direct the careful attention of the House—Cherif Pasha informed Sir Evelyn Baring that the Khedive and his Ministers placed themselves unreservedly and entirely in the hands of Her Majesty's Government. Accordingly, on December 13, the Egyptian Government were advised to withdraw their troops to Assouan or Wady Haifa. On the 16th a change appears to have come over the ideas of the Egyptian Government, for they seem to have decided against evacuation; and Cherif Pasha informed Sir Evelyn Baring that he saw objections to the evacuation of the Soudan, and he asked Sir Evelyn Baring to wait for further particulars before the Egyptian Government decided upon following the advice of Her Majesty's Government. He promised to send a Note giving his reasons for refusing to follow the advice of Her Majesty's Government; but that Note was not received until December 22, and as it contained a demand for the loan of 10,000 or 15,000 troops in order to hold the Soudan, it became necessary for Her Majesty's Government to accentuate the advice which had been previously given. The responsibility to be undertaken was a very grave one; but Sir Evelyn Baring was equal to the occasion, and on January 4, he received full authority to act upon what he had advised as the best course to be pursued. It is said that Her Majesty's Government should have taken care not to let the determination to withdraw from the Soudan be known. But when a Ministry falls because it will not pursue a given course, it is childish to think that you can prevent the reason of its fall from being known. The change of Ministry was made with less friction than Sir Evelyn Baring expected; and though the Press of this country was at first almost unanimous in condemning the policy of evacuation, no sensible man has now the courage to say that that policy was in itself wrong. The policy of the Government is called a policy of vacillation. I, myself, do not think that when the history of this period comes to be written there will be a stronger page than that on which is written the history of our action concerning the Soudan. I may now say a few words on the general question of our position in Egypt, and what we have done there. It has been generally said by many speakers that the Government have done nothing at all. I have recently passed some time in that country, and have had an opportunity of coming into contact with those very able men who have been recommended by Her Majesty's Government to the Government of Egypt, and it will therefore not be amiss if I say a few words on this point. I need not go back to the reason of our being in Egypt. It is enough for me to say that if I may condense the very eloquent despatch of Lord Dufferin into one sentence, it would be this—that, being in Egypt, and having taken the responsibility for her guidance, we had declared before Europe that we would bring within her reach, as far as possible, the blessings of justice and of peace. When we arrived in Egypt, what was the state of affairs? We found two gods in possession there—the gods of backsheesh and bachra—the gods of bribery and delay. It may be asked—what have we done since we went there? We have recommended certain changes in the Government—changes connected with organization. My noble Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has referred pretty fully to the changes made in the tribunals, and to the changes made in connection with the police. What was the Police Force before we went there? What was the condition of the police before we undertook its organization? It was a force of gendarmerie, aided by a force of local police, entirely under the irresponsible control of the Mudirs of the Provinces. But a new force has been organized under English rule and under English Inspectors. It is divided into three portions—the one at Assouan, another at Cairo, and another at Alexandria. The Inspectors of Police are answerable for the discipline and the conduct of that force; and the police is taken out of the hands of the Governors of the Provinces and placed under a central authority. The Inspectors are also charged with the care of the gaols; and when hon. Members consider for a moment the condition of those gaols before interference was undertaken by the English Inspectors, I think they will be satisfied that a very great change has taken place, and that good work has been done. It has been the custom when persons have been accused in Egypt to torture them most frightfully, in order to make them confess. This is one of the points to which Mr. Clifford Lloyd has given attention, and in the last few weeks there is no doubt at all that a wonderful change has taken place; in fact, the whole system has been thoroughly and entirely altered. With regard to the other changes that have been made, I may refer to that of irrigation. One of the very ablest of our Indian Officers—Colonel Scott Moncrieff—has been appointed to look after that very important question. He has with him two of his old Indian colleagues, whom he has sent down into the interior of the country, in order to supervize the supply of water, not only to the poorest of the fellahs, but also to the richer people. He will take care that in the arrangements he makes no favour will be shown to one person more than to another; and as great abuses have existed in Egypt with regard to this question, there is no doubt that, by the careful arrangements he has made—and which he has every hope of perfecting—the cultivation of the country will be immensely increased, and the soil of Egypt made far more fruitful than in years gone by. Then I have heard hon. Members sneer at what is being done by Sir Evelyn Wood in regard to the Army. Sir Evelyn Wood consented, in February last only, to undertake the formation of the Egyptian Army. He was assisted by 26 other English officers, who devoted themselves most earnestly to the work in hand; and, though I have no knowledge of military matters myself, I can assure the House, on the authority of General Stephenson and every other officer who has seen the troops at Cairo, that the progress they have made under the guidance of Sir Evelyn Wood has been perfectly marvellous. Sir Evelyn Wood only the other day, in writing to me as to what has been done, said he only hoped he might have a chance of leading some of these men against enemies, for he was quite certain they would be able to give a different account of themselves from anything which has happened in times gone by. There is one point I may mention in connection with the Army, and it is that a very significant change has taken place since the English officers have been incorporated with the Egyptian Army. It was not usual to give the soldiers in Egypt any furlough. This year, however, a fortnight's furlough has been given, and the Egyptian officials thought it a very foolish thing to do, because they said it was absolutely impossible to suppose that the troops would return. But the whole of the troops, with the exception of three men, came back at the proper time; and the knowledge they spread among the villages of Egypt as to the manner in which they had been treated was so encouraging that a number of volunteers joined the force—a circumstance wholly unknown in Egypt in past years. My hon. Friend the Member for the County of Water-ford (Mr. Villiers Stuart) spoke earnestly the other night with regard to the financial condition of Egypt. That is now under the guidance of a most able English gentleman, aided by Blum Pasha, the Under Secretary of State for Finance there. It was absolutely necessary to take hold with a firm band of the finances of Egypt; and Mr. Vincent, I am quite certain, will grasp the nettle which has grown up in that country, and if he has an opportunity I am quite certain he will be able to put the finance of that country on a very different footing from that which it occupies at the present time. My hon. Friend the Member for the County of Waterford has spoken of the difficulties in the way of the regeneration of the finances of Egypt. I will not detain the House on that point; but I may say that the greatest difficulty at the present time is the Law of Liquidation, which is the practical outcome of the Dual Control. The Law of Liquidation fixed a certain amount of assigned revenue to the service of the Debt. At the same time, there is not enough of ordinary revenue in Egypt to meet the expenses of the Government. The expenses of the Government at the present time are rather more than £500,000 over the amount which was set aside for that purpose; and it seems to me that, speaking for myself more than for the Government—but I also hope that I may speak for the Government in this matter—it would be well if the Law of Liquidation were considered, with a view to some considerable modification, before we can hope to place the finances of Egypt on a sound basis. There are other questions which press for solution in Egypt. The Customs are rather hampered by the capitulations; but that is a matter which cannot be regulated without a considerabl eamount of trouble. Therefore, altogether, although it is said that nothing has been done in Egypt, I may state that the finances were being looked after as earnestly as possible; the new Tribunals started by Sir Benson Maxwell are under weigh; I have described the changes which have been made in the police and in the gaols; I have told you that torture has ceased; that irrigation is being prosecuted, as it has not been prosecuted in times gone by; and it cannot be alleged that that is a small work to have been accomplished by the English officials during one year in Egypt, especially considering the difficulties they had to contend with. We may, therefore, look hopefully forward. The difficulties, no doubt, are great, but we have manned the ship with our best men; and with such a captain as Sir Evelyn Baring, I do not think we need despair of coming safe into port at last. My right hon. Friend and namesake opposite (Sir B. Assheton Cross) has said that we were tempting Providence in sending out General Gordon. Well, some people would say, perhaps, that we were trusting Providence. I do not think that we shall have any cause to regret sending General Gordon to Egypt; and perhaps General Gordon, plus Providence, is not a bad stand-by. So having General Gordon, plus Providence, to help us in Africa, and having fact and argument to help us in the House of Commons, I do not think we have any occasion to fear the crushing load of censure which hon. Gentlemen opposite seek to heap upon us.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

Sir, there has been one remarkable feature in this debate, and that is that the defence of Her Majesty's Government has been practically left to the Members who sit on the Treasury Bench; and in spite of the observation of the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that the advantage of a long debate was that irrelevant issues were put aside, I am afraid that many of the topics to which both the noble Lord and the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down have alluded have not been completely relevant to the question now before the House. The noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs started again that very old subject of the Dual Control. I do not wish to follow him into any argument upon that matter. The Dual Control is dead and gone; and although it may be of interest to the Prime Minister, and the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the President of the Local Government Board, to remember that they long ago uttered opinions against the Dual Control, I am happy to see in his place the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, as late as July, 1882, said— Our endeavour was to carry out that joint political influence of France and England which had been established by our Predecessors, and, in my humble judgment, wisely established. I set that opinion of the right hon. Gentleman against those of his Colleagues, and I leave them to settle the matter between themselves. It seems to me that the causes of our present position in Egypt are to be traced to a period very far anterior to the Dual Control. Our present position in Egypt is really due to our special interests in that country; and those special interests have existed ever since the establishment of our Indian Empire and of our great Colonies in Australasia and the Eastern Seas; and I venture to say that no English Government, whatever political theories it might profess, could possibly avoid such interference in Egypt as might be necessary at any time to prevent either the predominance, in that country, of any other European Power, or the anarchy which, not only on our own account, but also on behalf of the civilized world, it is our special duty to restrain. If it were requisite to enter into the question, I could show that in nothing did the late Government go beyond the necessities of those interests in any of the steps which they took in regard to Egypt. We do not blame Her Majesty's Government for the responsibilities they are charged with in Egypt; but what we do blame them for is that, being charged with those responsibilities, they have not fulfilled them. The obligations under which they are to protect Egypt, involve the necessity of controlling its whole Administration. We have heard, over and over again, from speakers on the Treasury Bench, how the Government have interfered in every single detail of the home administration of Egypt; and yet they have left the Khedive and his Ministers—those very men whom they could not trust to take care of the home affairs of their own country—free to work their will in regard to the Soudan. Well, if that is not inconsistency, I do not know what inconsistency means. But not only have Her Majesty's Government been inconsistent with themselves on this great question of Egyptian policy, but they have been inconsistent in the way in which they have dealt from time to time with the affairs of the Soudan itself. I ask the House to pardon me if I detain it a few moments in regard to the two points which the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs stated were the head and front of the indictment against Her Majesty's Government—namely, the destruction of the Expedition of Hicks Pasha, and the terrible fate of the unfortunate garrison of Sinkat. Now, last spring I do not think that Her Majesty's Government could allege that they were entirely indifferent to the affairs of the Soudan. They sent Colonel Stewart to inquire into and report upon the affairs of that country. They recommended the Egyptian Government, time after time, to adopt the reforms recommended by Colonel Stewart, and they sanctioned the advice of Lord Dufferin to abandon a certain part of the Soudan. Therefore, to the end of last spring, at any rate, Her Majesty's Government did take an interest in the affairs of the Soudan. But then their interest departed. What has been called, I think, the policy of "impotent advice" came to an end, and they made up their minds that they would avoid all future responsibility with regard to Soudan affairs. From that date down to the time of the celebrated despatch of January 4th, the despatches from the Foreign Office do nothing but repeat "non-responsibility. We decline to give you advice, or to have anything to say with regard to what you do in the Soudan." But they were inconsistent even in this. All the time that they were writing these despatches to the Egyptian Government—all the time the Egyptian Ministers were acknowledging the receipt of them with effusion, knowing perfectly well that if anything happened to put Egypt in danger, England would have to protect them—all that very time there was correspondence going on between the Agent of the British Government at Cairo and the officials of the Egyptian. Government in the Soudan, who had been taught to rely on the influence of the British Government to obtain what they wanted from the Ministers of the Khedive. Now, Sir, is not that inconsistency—that such correspondence should go on concurrently with the despatches to which I have referred? I asked the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a few days ago if he could tell us what these communications had been, and his reply was that the Foreign Office had no cognizance of them. It is, however, perfectly clear from the Blue Books, and the noble Lord cannot deny it, that these communications did pass. General Hicks in all his difficulties did nothing but appeal to Sir Edward Malet to exercise his influence with the Egyptian Government to secure him what he required. Then, for Her Majesty's Government to say they are not responsible for the acts of their Agent in Cairo, is only to put the responsibility on their Agent which they ought to take on their own heads. Well, Sir, the noble Lord said that the reason why Her Majesty's Government had not interfered to prevent General Hicks from undertaking that Expedition, was that they had no reason to believe that it would terminate in such a terrible disaster. That, at all events, is not quite the view of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. His interpretation of the policy of Her Majesty's Government was that they preferred to let events take their course. On the 21st of August, Lord Granville had received a telegram from Sir Edward Malet, sent by General Hicks, at Khartoum, as follows:— The Prefect of Police here is the greatest fanactic and inimical to the Government; the result is, the police are worse than useless. The Consuls have before this complained of the Prefect's inflammatory language against Christians. The Mahdi is informed of everything that goes on; his spies are always in the town, whereas no information is procured by us, not even regarding the supplies of water on any of the routes. An old Government officer tells me that more than half of the Government employés, clerks, &c, are partizans of the Mahdi; and that, in the event of a reverse to our Expedition, the danger to Khartoum would begin in the Government officials. I think Suleiman Pasha's very open disregard of my advice and wishes, and his opposition to my plan, has done a great deal of harm."—[Egypt, No. 22 (1883), p. 82.] On August 5, in a further telegram, General Hicks said— Will you do me the favour of impressing on War Minister the necessity for seeing that money is sent me for the payment of troops on the Blue Nile? The men at Kerkoj are twenty-five months in arrear of pay, and at Fazoglu nine months, and have neither clothes nor food; they cannot get very much from the country, as they are surrounded by rebel villages. The men have shown a spirit of insubordination, which is not to he wondered at. …. £80,000 for arrears was promised, but none received yet.…. To keep Sennaar in order there will be this army on the Blue Nile without money and without transport. It is almost impossible to contend against all these adverse conditions; to-day, the first time, I have heard of the condition of the Fazoglu garrison, although the Moudir says he has reported frequently. The garrison was left by Abdul Kader. Taking into consideration the whole state of affairs in this country, I am convinced that it would be best to keep the two rivers and Province of Sennaar, and wait for Kordofan to settle itself."—[Ibid. p. 83.] That was precisely the advice tendered to Her Majesty's Government and to the Egyptian Government by Lord Dufferin in April, and we have a right to ask them why they did not insist upon General Hicks being ordered back, or, at any rate, being required to postpone this wild and hopeless Expedition? We have had some reasons given us by the Prime Minister against the adoption of that course. I think the right hon. Gentleman said—and it has been repeated this evening—that it would have entailed upon this country the responsibility of, at any rate, assenting to foreign domination in a part of the Soudan. I should like to know what that means? Either Her Majesty's Government supposed that the Expedition of General Hicks would succeed, or that it would not. If they thought General Hicks would not succeed, and that by permitting his Expedition they were securing the liberation of the Eastern and Western Soudan, then they deliberately sent that Expedition to its destruction. If, on the other hand, they thought it would succeed, surely, having that strong objection to foreign domination in the Soudan expressed by the Prime Minister the other night, it ought to have been their wish to prevent General Hicks from starting upon the Expedition, so that, at least, the Western Soudan should be free from foreign domination. But all these objections to foreign domination are an afterthought; Her Majesty's Government had sanctioned Lord Dufferin's proposal that the Egyptian domination should be continued in Eastern Soudan; and, more than that, at a much later date, they had actually agreed to the proposal of the Egyptian Government that the Turks should be allowed to send a Military Expedition to Suakim to put down the rebellion in the Soudan in whatever way they chose, and that Turkish administration should be established throughout that country. Now, Sir, that proposal has long ago disappeared, and perhaps it is as well, because I can hardly imagine that the Prime Minister could have defended such action after those well-remembered utterances a few years ago, in which no language was too strong to express his detestation of Turkish rule and Turkish military operations, especially when the country in which those operations were to take place had been in a state of rebellion. The real fact was, as it was stated by the Under Secretary of State for India, that Her Majesty's Government, with regard to the Soudan, thought they could let events take their course, and that whatever happened there would not interfere with their policy in Egypt Proper. Then the news of the defeat of General Hicks came to England. What did Her Majesty's Government do? At last they realized that they could not allow events to take their course in the Soudan; and they countermanded the proposed withdrawal of the English troops from Cairo. But for six weeks, I venture to say that absolutely nothing more than this was done by Her Majesty's Government, after the receipt of news which they knew perfectly well showed to them and to the whole world that the administration and the safety of Egypt were at stake, until at length, on the 4th of January, they wrote what the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) has called to-night "that fatal despatch." I do not know what they could have done else. By that time it was perfectly clear that every shadow of self-government in Egypt had absolutely disappeared, and if we did not openly assume that responsibility, which is the necessary consequence of our power in Egypt, the country would relapse into a worse state of anarchy than anything that ever existed before. So, on the 4th of January, they wrote a despatch abolishing the Constitution they had set up; they made the Khedive their puppet, and insisted that his so-called Ministers should execute their orders. But even in that they were not consistent, for in a despatch of the same date they actually proposed that those who they were pleased to call "the authorities in Egypt" should decide such vital questions as the choice of Assouan or Wady Haifa as the Southern Frontier of Egypt, the duty of preparing for the defence of the Frontier when chosen, and the conduct of the operations for the relief of the besieged garrisons. Well, Sir, on the 8th of January, Cherif Pasha not unnaturally resigned; but even since that Her Majesty's Government have still kept up the fiction of a responsible Egyptian Government. Last night the right hon. Baronet the President of the Local Government Board spoke of Nubar Pasha as a man who was as able and powerful as any European Minister. Now, I venture to say that Nubar Pasha is the merest clerk of the Ministers of the Queen. He is in Egypt to obey their commands, and to do nothing else; and it is a farce to speak of the Egyptian Government in the way in which Her Majesty's Ministers have advised the Queen to speak of that Government in Her Gracious Speech, which is still before the House—namely, to talk of offering counsels to a Government they have abolished, and to refer to the resolution to withdraw from the Soudan as if it were the free and unbiassed resolution of the Khedive himself. These pretences, for they are nothing else, would be laughable but for the Unfortunate fact that it is to them we owe the massacre of Baker Pasha's force, and the sufferings of the garrisons at Sinkat and Tokar. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, on the assumption of the real Government of Egypt, take measures to secure the safety of those garrisons? I think that is a question which has never yet been answered. The noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs told us this evening that Her Majesty's Government did not interfere because they had no reason to suppose that Baker Pasha was not likely to succeed in the operations he was about to undertake, and they would not incur, in order to save human life, the terrible risk of having to propose a Vote in this House in Committee of Supply. What ground had they to suppose that Baker Pasha was likely to succeed in the operations he was about to undertake? On the 26th of December they had received from Admiral Hewett a statement that the Egyptian Governor at Suakim had reported that an attempt to relieve Sinkat and Tokar with the forces then at his disposal was impossible; that his troops were unreliable and disheartened; and that the British officers had little confidence in their Egyptian troops. Her Majesty's Government knew that all the reinforcements sent to Baker Pasha after that date were 1,600 blacks, half-armed and without their favourite leader, because that person did not happen to be agreeable to Her Majesty's Government, although Baker Pasha had specially requested that he should be sent to command them. Baker Pasha was thwarted by the delays and incapacity, if nothing worse, of the "authorities" at Cairo; and all the assistance Her Majesty's Government gave him was to prevent his request for Zobin Pasha from being complied with. Let me now pause to inquire what other harm they did to him. They issued that Proclamation—for it was nothing else—of the abandonment of the Soudan. It must have given heart to all the enemies of the unfortunate garrisons, and it certainly deprived the friendly tribes, who otherwise might have assisted in their relief, of all courage to aid them. It is said that General Gordon did not believe the Proclamation that the Soudan was to be abandoned would have any such effect as I have pointed out. What does he tell you to-day as to the sending of forces to Suakim? Sir Evelyn Baring, telegraphing on the 12th of February to Lord Granville, says that General Gordon replies to his Lordship's telegram of the 11th— As to sending forces to Suakim to assist withdrawal, I would care more for rumour of such intention than for forces. What would have greatest effect would be rumour of English intervention."—[Egypt, No. 8 (1884).] Her Majesty's Government might have known that Baker Pasha had worse to contend with than inadequate forces without leaders, and sent to him after very lengthened delay. He was met with what I was almost going to call treason at Cairo itself. At any rate, he was not supported, as any man in his position ought to have been supported, by the so-called Egyptian Government, and there is a very significant addition to the remarks which have been recently published by Colonel Stewart upon General Gordon's prospects in the Soudan, which shows what he thinks of the relations between Egyptian Ministers and English officers in their employment. What does Colonel Stewart say? He says that it is essential to success that General Gordon should not be interfered with by the Ministers at Cairo. The other day, the Prime Minister replied to the suggestion that an attempt might have been made to relieve Sinkat even after the failure of Baker Pasha. The right hon. Gentleman gave two reasons why such an attempt could not have been made. In the first place, he said it was impossible. I thought at the time that if that had been the fact, the right hon. Gentleman would not have gone on to give a second reason; but he did, and what was his second reason? It was that Her Majesty's Government thought they ought to consult General Gordon as to whether such an attempt would in any way interfere with the success of his work in the Soudan. It would have been, as it seems to me, almost an insult to consult such a man as General Gordon, who has gone out to the Soudan with his life in his hand, whether he would, on account of possible risk to himself, dissuade Her Majesty's Government from undertaking the operations necessary to save the lives of the bravo garrison of Sinkat, and the 1,000 women and children who were confined in the beleaguered town; but anyone would have supposed, from what the Prime Minister said, that a direct question had been put to General Gordon whether an attempt to relieve the garrisons should be made. The telegram has only been issued this evening; and what, in fact, were the terms of the message which was addressed to General Gordon? The telegram was this— It has been suggested by a military authority that, to assist the policy of withdrawal, a British force should he sent to Suakim sufficient to operate, if necessary, in its vicinity. Would such a step injure or assist your mission?"—[Ibid.] Not a word is said about the relief of the beleaguered garrisons. The object of the operation referred to might have been, for anything General Gordon could know to the contrary, to open up the road from Suakim to Berber. I, for one, cannot conceive a message more likely to puzzle its recipient, or to induce him to give an answer which, perhaps, might have justified Her Majesty's Government in delaying those operations which the country was calling upon them to undertake, than the one which I have just read. Well, Sir, at last, three days ago, Her Majesty's Gevernment made up their minds to turn over a new leaf, so far as to undertake that an Expedition should be sent to the relief of the garri- son of Tokar. We must all hope that that Expedition may not be too late; but weeks ago we heard that that unfortunate garrison was short of water, and had only 10 or 20 rounds of ammunition left per man. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), in speaking upon this matter yesterday, said he was induced by this action on the part of Her Majesty's Government to believe that they had completely changed their policy in the direction which he desired; but I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman was a little too sanguine in this matter. It was only last night that we heard two speeches, the argument of which was that we have no interest in Egypt, and the sooner we get out of it the better. Directly afterwards the Prime Minister rose and expressed his sympathy with a great portion of those speeches; and to-night the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Morley), in the able speech which he delivered, took occasion to remark that he believed Her Majesty's Government were not out of harmony with the Movers of the Amendment—a remark which was not contradicted from the Treasury Bench. I am afraid that the present resolution to relieve Tokar is but a temporary incident in the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and that they will return to that policy of "do nothing" which many hon. Members on the other side of the House so much favour. The Government have, however, done one thing. They have sent General Gordon to the Soudan, and we all agree that that was an excellent thing to do. We do not quite know how he has been sent—whether he is an agent of the Egyptian Government, or whether Her Majesty's Government are solely responsible for what he may do. But this we do know—that, in fact, Her Majesty's Government have put all their responsibility upon his shoulders; that they have allowed him to draw up his own instructions; and that they have given him freer scope to act as he chooses than, perhaps, any officer similarly placed ever possessed before. I do not blame them for doing so, for General Gordon is the one man in the world whose genius and experience qualify him, and may, we hope, enable him, to perform the grave and difficult task he has undertaken. But if Her Majesty's Government place such implicit confidence in General Gordon now, why in the world did they not think of him before? Why did they wait until the middle of January? Why did they not send for him last spring, or last summer, or last autumn, when all these operations were going on, and when all these calamities were imminent? Why did they not even consult General Gordon as to their policy with respect to the Soudan? Did they ever offer him employment there? Now, that is a question I should very much like to get at the bottom of. It was stated in this House the other night by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) that General Gordon had offered his services to Her Majesty's Government for employment in the Soudan in October last, ["Oh!"] I know that the President of the Local Government Board has contradicted that, and has said General Gordon had asked Her Majesty's Government whether they would authorize his employment on the River Congo. Very well; but was there nothing said at the time, either by General Gordon or by Her Majesty's Government, as to the possibility of his serving them in the Soudan? I should like very much to have these communications laid on the Table. I think we ought to know what has actually passed; and if Her Majesty's Government did take any steps to secure General Gordon's services, it should be established that he definitely told them he would not serve them in the Soudan. Sir, I cannot believe that General Gordon would ever make such an answer to a request made by Her Majesty's Government. Well, General Gordon has been sent upon an Expedition perhaps as hazardous as any man in this world ever undertook, and the policy which, it appears, he is going to carry out is as remarkable as the character of the man himself. He is expected to tame this fanatical Mahdi and all his savage followers, who have just conquered two Egyptian Armies, led by English officers. He is expected to withdraw 27,000 men from the Mahdi and his followers—their greatest enemies in the world—in peace and safety. He is expected to set up members of the old Reigning Families in the different districts of the Soudan as rival Powers to the Mahdi, and to hand over the arsenals in the Soudan to those persons who are to be so set up, if those arsenals have not already passed into the hands of the Mahdi. He is to do all this by his own personal influence, aided by nothing whatever except by an unlimited supply of money from the empty Egyptian Treasury. Now, Sir, it seems to me that if these persons who are to be set up are to submit to the Mahdi, it is not much good setting them up at all. If, on the other hand, they are, as General Gordon seems to say, to act as rival Powers to the Mahdi, then I am afraid Her Majesty's Government are only preparing for the Soudan something very like that which they prepared for another part of Africa—namely, Zululand; and that these different Tribes in the Soudan will commence just that internecine warfare which Cetewayo and his neighbours commenced in Zululand when he was re-established in part of his Kingdom. I do not say we are able to set up a new Government in the Soudan; but we had better not try to set up any Government there at all than bring about such anarchy and bloodshed as may arise from this arrangement. Then, I would like to know precisely—we may, perhaps, have an opportunity of learning it from some Member of Her Majesty's Government—what they expect will be the result of this attempt? General Gordon evidently anticipates that there will be a certain amount of fighting in the attempt to withdraw the garrisons. Well, supposing the result of that be unfavourable to General Gordon, are they going to send an English Force to support him or are they going to leave him to shift for himself? Now, Her Majesty's Government must have made up their minds on this question; and I hope they will tell him plainly that, having sent him out, they will support him, whatever be the risk, in the policy which it may be necessary to pursue. The next question is—how far is General Gordon to withdraw from the interior of the Soudan? In the despatch of January 4, there is a statement that Her Majesty's Government "have decided that the Southern Frontier of Egypt is to be at Assouan or Wadi Halfa." They necessarily considered the possibility of defending such a Frontier before fixing it, and the blow which the withdrawal from the Soudan may be to the authority of the Govern- ment in Egypt Proper. It is pretty well known that General Gordon, before he went on this Expedition, always considered that Egyptian authority at Khartoum should be maintained. Now, I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government have at least left this question open to the decision of General Gordon himself. I believe it would be a very grave mistake to withdraw the authority of a civilized Government from Khartoum. This is no question of the reconquest of the Soudan; it is a question of retaining or giving up to barbarism a most important position on the great highway of civilization and commerce to the interior of Africa. I say you have no right to give up such a position if you can maintain it; and, further, that to give it up without attempting to maintain it is an abnegation of all the duties of this country, not only in respect of civilization and commerce, but also in respect of that which Her Majesty's Ministers profess to be so dear to them—namely, the attempt to put down the Slave Trade in Africa. Sir, it is well that Her Majesty's Government have made up their minds, on these two questions of General Gordon's Mission and the relief of the garrison of Tokar, to throw away that miserable cloak of pretence which has so long impeded anything like efficient or good government in Egypt, and to take the matter into their own hands. I hope that no absurd scruples about the dignity of the Khedive will prevent their carrying the same policy throughout the whole administration of Egypt. It is very easy to talk of retiring from Egypt as soon as a good Native Administration is securely established there; but it is quite another thing, as we have seen in the last year, to find the proper materials for such Administration, and no one can tell the date at which such an Administration, when found, will be able to run alone. Sir, I do think that as we have the power in Egypt, so we should openly acknowledge our responsibility for its government. The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Morley) thinks that any such admission of our duties would be taken amiss by the European Powers. But, Sir, I believe, on the other hand, that they would welcome an announcement that English policy would be administered by English hands, as offering to them and their subjects greater security in Egypt than they have had hitherto. Much has been said this evening about Egyptian finance—the hon. Member himself has alluded to it—but I cannot help thinking that if we plainly stated, not that we should leave, or intended or expected to leave, Egypt in six months, or anything of that kind—the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs this evening sufficiently exposed the absurdity of such a promise—but that our position in Egypt must be durable, and that we could not leave it until an Administration was set up there which we could confidently leave in our place—I cannot help thinking that, if some announcement of that kind were made, something even might be done for that which is so much required—namely, the placing the finances of Egypt in a better position. If our stay in that country makes law and order more secure, is not that of importance to the bondholders? Might not they fairly be asked in return to agree to some arrangement by which they might be justly required to bear some part of those burdens which have fallen recently on Egypt, owing to these military operations which have prevented their bonds becoming mere waste paper? Sir, there is another point on which I feel strongly; and no one who knows the foundations on which our Indian Empire is built, who knows the value of the prestige of English power, can look with indifference on those repeated defeats of helpless Egyptian troops, sent out by an incapable Government, but led by English officers, at the hands of half-armed and half-civilized tribes. I think it is time that this should cease, and that when English officers fight in defence of Egypt they should fight as officers of the Queen, and not as officers of a shadow Government. Her Majesty's Government would have nothing to say to any interference with the Soudan Expedition; they would not even advise the Egyptian Government as to what they should do with regard to it; and in the result they have had to compel the abandonment of the Soudan—to overturn the responsible Government of Egypt—and to carry out that abandonment by their own officers. They would have nothing to do with the efforts of Baker Pasha to relieve the garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar; but after a mas- sacre, which has filled this country with pain and shame, they have been compelled to send an English Expedition in order to rescue the unfortunate survivors. Sir, I hope Her Majesty's Government may even yet take these two lessons to heart, and may have the couage, in spite of a small section who do not represent the opinion of the country, to speak out their minds openly, to avow their assumption of responsibilities from which they may shrink for a time, but which they cannot ultimately evade.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir John Lubbock.)

Motion agreed to.

Debate further adjourned till Monday next.