change for the worse.  Throughout the forty years of our occupation we have most carefully preserved the theory of Egyptian independence.  We have occupied and administered the country, but we have never annexed it or claimed it to be part of the British Empire.  We intervened in 1882 for the purpose of restoring order, and five years later we offered to withdraw, and were only prevented from carrying out our intention because the Sultan of Turkey declined, at the instigation of another Power, to sign the Firman which gave us the right of re-occupying the country if order should again be disturbed.  In the subsequent years we gave repeated assurances to Egyptians and to foreign Powers that we had no intention of altering the status of the country as defined in its theoretical government by Khedive, Egyptian Ministers, and Egyptian Council or Assembly.  And though it was true that in virtue of the army of occupation we were in fact supreme, by leaving the forms of their government untouched and refraining from all steps to legalise our position we reassured the Egyptians as to our ultimate objects.

In the eyes of the Egyptians the proclamation of the Protectorate and the conversion of the “Agent and Consul-General” into a “High Commissioner” armed with the weapons of martial law seriously prejudiced this situation, and though they acquiesced for the period of the war, they were determined to have a settlement with us immediately it was over, and took us very seriously at our word when we promised to review the whole situation when that time came.  The truth about the “Protectorate” was that we adopted it as a way out of the legal entanglement which would otherwise have converted the Egyptians into enemy aliens when their suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, entered the war against us, and we did it deliberately as the preferable alternative to annexing the country.  But we have neither explained to the Egyptians nor made clear to ourselves what exactly we meant by it, and in the absence of explanations it was interpreted in Egypt as a first step to the extinction of Egyptian nationality.

AFTER-WAR MISTAKES

Had we acted wisely and expeditiously at the end of the war we might even then have avoided the trouble that followed.  But when Egyptian ministers asked leave to come to London in December, 1918, we answered that the time was not opportune for these discussions, and when the Nationalist leaders proposed to send a delegation, we said that no good purpose could be served by their coming to Europe.  This heightened the alarm, and the Nationalists retorted by raising their claims from “complete autonomy” to “complete independence,” and started a violent agitation.  The Government retaliated by deporting Zaghlul to Malta, whereupon the country broke into rebellion.  Lord Allenby now came upon the scene, and, while suppressing the rebellion, released Zaghlul and gave him and his delegation the permission to go to Europe which had been refused in January.  It was now decided to send out the Milner Mission, but there was a further delay of seven months before it started, and during all that time agitation continued.