§ MR. GOURLEY (Sunderland)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Her Majesty's Government intend instructing the Government of Egypt to embrace the opportunity afforded by the success of General Grenfell against the Dervishes, of again obtaining access to the navigable waters of the Upper Nile and the Bahr Gazelle, by despatching a sufficient number of river fighting steamers during the rising of the Nile, for the purpose of obtaining and holding possession of Dongola and Berber, and thus retain the acknowledged strategical and commercial keys requisite for the safety of Egypt as well as the diminution of slavery?
§ * THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASUEY (Mr. W. H. SMITH, Strand,550 Westminster) The hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension in addressing this question of whether we intend instructing the Government of Egypt to me. We cannot instruct the Egyptian Government as if it were a Department of the English Government. The policy of Her Majesty's Government remains the same as it has always been—that is, to maintain the engagements into which the country has entered.