Our second interest in Mohammedanism lies in Egypt.  Here, standing at the threshold of our commerce with the East, we find another large community almost wholly Mussulman, for whose well-being we are already to a certain extent pledged, and in whose political future we perceive our own to be involved.  A hostile Egypt we rightly hold to be an impossibility for our position; and religious antagonism at Cairo, even if controlled by military occupation, would be to us a constant menace.  Nor must it be supposed that Egypt, like the Barbary coast, will, into whose hands soever it falls, change its religious aspect.  The population of the Delta is too industrious, too sober, and content with too little, to fear competition as agriculturists with either Italians, Greeks, or Maltese; and the conditions of life under a torrid sun will always protect Egypt from becoming an European colony.  The towns may, indeed, be overrun by foreigners, but the heart of the country will remain unchanged, and, like India, will refuse to remodel itself on any foreign system of civilization.  Mohammedanism, therefore, will maintain itself in Egypt intact, and its good-will will remain our necessity.[19]

A third interest lies in Asiatic Turkey.  This we have guaranteed by treaty against foreign invasion; and though our pledge is nominally to the Sultan, not to the people of the Empire, and though that pledge is contingent upon an impossibility, administrative reform, and is therefore not strictly binding, it is impossible to escape the admission that we have a moral obligation towards the Mussulmans of Asia Minor and Syria.  How far we may be disposed or able to fulfil it remains to be seen.  I do not myself anticipate any further intervention on the part of England in defence of the Turkish-speaking lands.  These, from their geographical position, lie outside our effective military control, and, dishonourable as a retreat from our engagements will be to us, it may be a necessity.

It is difficult to understand how an English army could effectively protect either Asia Minor or Mesopotamia from Russian invasion.  The occupation of Kars has given Russia the command of the Tigris and Euphrates, and with them of Armenia, Kurdistan and Irak, so that our protection could hardly be extended beyond the sea-coast of Asia Minor and the Persian Gulf.  No such inability, however, applies to Syria.  There, if we will, we certainly can carry out our engagements.  A mere strip of seaboard, backed by the desert, and attackable only from the north on a narrow frontier of some hundred miles, Syria is easily defensible by a nation holding the sea.  It is probable that a railway run from the Gulf of Scanderun to the Euphrates, and supported by a single important fortress, would be sufficient to effect its military security at least for many years; and Syria might thus have given to it a chance of self-government, and some compensation for misfortunes in which we