It has been my object in writing this book to endeavour to promote friendship and goodwill between Englishmen and Egyptians. I have tried to bring into prominence the good points that I believe the Egyptian to possess. For twelve years I have been an open advocate of an autonomous government for Egypt, and I still believe that it is only under such a government that the interests of the country and its people can be ultimately secured, but, much as it may grieve my Egyptian friends, I do not hesitate to say that their action in this matter, apart from all else or anything else, demonstrates in the most absolute manner the fact that they are not yet fit for self-government. The very first qualification for a people who desire to govern themselves is that they should be competent to weigh and value the services of the men in whose hands the administration of the country is placed or to be placed. A people who can see nothing in the services of Lord Cromer worthy of their thanks are utterly incapable of forming any accurate or reliable judgment upon the choice of administrators, and therefore unfit for and incapable of self-government. There is no room for doubt or discussion on the subject. I have pointed out in the course of this work that the Egyptians have some reason to be dissatisfied with various features of the occupation. For these, as I have said, I do not think that either Lord Cromer or the Government can be justly blamed. They are almost all the inevitable incidents of the effort to plant Occidental civilisation in an Oriental country. But neither these nor anything that has occurred can in any way derogate from the fact that has been the most salient point in the whole history of Lord Cromer's administration--that he has persistently and consistently, in season and out of season, laboured unceasingly with a single eye to the benefit of the Egyptians. If the Egyptians are unable to see that this has been so, they are unable to estimate the services of any administrator, and therefore unfit to govern themselves.
Lord Cromer has himself been all through a steady advocate of an autonomous government for Egypt, but he has seen that such a government can, in the interests of the Egyptians themselves, as well as in the interests of Europe, only be granted when, by the self-education of the people, they shall have fitted themselves for the task. I say self-education advisedly, for it is only by self-education that the Egyptians or any other people can ever qualify themselves to guide their own destinies. As I have said on a previous page, I believe that if left to themselves the Egyptians could and would work out a sound form of government for themselves, but the most essential feature in the question of the future of Egypt is this--that whoever undertakes to govern Egypt, whether the Egyptians themselves or any other people, the government of the country must be one that can and will govern it, not only with sufficient care and regard for the interests of the people, but, with equal care and regard for the interests of the European colonists and the other European interests involved. It is the inability of Mr. Dicey and the other critics of Lord Cromer to see this that stamps their writings and arguments with futility. "Egypt for the Egyptians" in any literal interpretation of the phrase is an idle dream. It is no more possible of realisation than would be a cry of "the ocean for England."