It is, I think, Lord Cromer's belief that in time, if he would once set himself the task of learning to govern on sound and healthy lines, the Egyptian would become qualified to take charge of the destinies of his country. If that time does not arrive it will be the fault of the Egyptian himself. It is not England only but all Europe is ready and willing to aid him in learning. No other people has ever had anything like the same opportunity of self-advancement, and keenly as I sympathise with them, warmly as I appreciate their good qualities, I am assured that if they do not attain self-government the fault will be their own and their own only. If they elect to be domineered over by the Anti-Islamic "Nationalist" party, and to be false to their country, their religion, and themselves, the fault is theirs, and it is they who must bear the consequences.
The official statement that the administration is to be carried on by Lord Cromer's successor in the same spirit and on the same lines as those Lord Cromer has followed is the best guarantee that the Egyptians or European nations interested in the country could have that the magnificent work he has accomplished is not to be lost.
Years ago, in India, an engineer was busy putting the last finishing touches to a great undertaking that had cost him years of thought and labour. The success of his work seemed almost secured when the rising floods of the rainy season, seizing on a weak and unprotected point, threatened to wreck the whole. I trust I may never again behold such awful agony of mind as that which almost crushed the unhappy man as he gazed upon the roaring rush of the ruthless flood, slowly, surely destroying the very foundations of his work.
Assuredly it would be a calamity of untold magnitude were the vastly greater work of Lord Cromer to be imperilled for want of any reasonable precaution!
Alexandria, English fleet at, in 1798, 11 Nelson arrives at, 37
_Al Moayyad_, Arabic newspaper, 321, 337 teaching the people to think, 384
Ambition, Egyptians regard it as folly, 183
"Amnesty" as interpreted by the French, 240
Anniversary of French Republic at Cairo, 155
Anti-Egyptian and Anti-Islamic party in Egypt, 379
Anti-English feeling of European colonists, 306