58 accounts in the Egyptian press of the welcome extended to Egyptian students and the cheapness and gaiety of life in Berlin. It serves to emphasise the desirability ■of extending the Egyptian colleges which prepare for medicine, engineering and law so as to enable Egyptian students to receive their ordinary professional training in their own country.

38. Sultania Library.

Dr. Schaade, the director of the Sultania Library, left Egypt on the outbreak of the war, and his post is now filled by Ahmed Sadik Bey. In Mav 1919 his Excellency Gaafar Wali Pasha, ex-Minister of Wakfs, was entrusted with the special mission •of studying the reorganisation of the library. As a result of his proposals the administration is being remodelled; the section of the Government press, which was ■devoted to the renaissance of Arabic literature, has been transferred to the library, and the Government has agreed to give a grant of£E. 6,000 a year for expenditure ■connected therewith, while the various scattered parcels of Wakf land which belong to the library are to be exchanged for a compact block of agricultural land which will admit of being more economically administered.

Since 1914 the library has published the following Arabic works ; “ Subh-el-A’sha” (fourteen volumes), “El Ahkam ” (four volumes), “El I’tisam ” (three volumes), “ El Tiraz ” (three volumes), “ El Khasais,” “ El Asnam ” (first volume) and “ El Tag.”

The library now contains 92,000 books as compared with 79,000 in 1914. 40,000 •of the books are in the oriental section and 52,000 in the European section. The total number of attendances in the reading rooms increased from 33,000 in 1914 to 55,000 in 1918, and the number of books borrowed for home-reading increased from 3,000 in 1914 to 14,000 in 1918. A considerable falling off occurred in 1919, the number of attendances declining to 18,000, and the number of books borrowed for home-reading to 10,000.

Y.—INTERIOR.

39. General.

The effect of war conditions was particularly pronounced in the sphere of the Ministry of the Interior. All classes of the population were, in varying degrees, psychologically disturbed; and Egypt, though not the scene of active operations, passed for many purposes aimosc completely under military administration. Apart from the natural dislocation of Government, caused by the existence of two authoiities distinct in kind, and the necessary incursion of the military authority into the sphere of the civil, certain civil departments fell to a greater or less extent undei military control and were obliged to divert their normal activities to the fulfitoent of the demands of the army, while a number of officials were either serving as oflicers or were occupied in performing various local functions for the different branches pt the Expeditionary Force. Thus the Public Security Department became, for certain purposes, a local branch of the Intelligence Section of the General Staff; members ot the Egyptian Police were regarded as ihc executive of the Commander-in-chiei loi the enforcement of the provisions of proclamations and orders issued under martial law and the provincial machinery oi the Ministry of the Interior was for considerable periods very largely occupied by recruiting for the Egyptian Labour Corps and obtaining supplies for the army. I need not multiply instances, but it may be said without fear of exaggeration that half the time and energy of the officials of the Ministry of the Interior was devoted during the period of the war to the pursuit o± nublic activities other than that of administering the country. The admmistration suffered severely, and especially from the point of view of public security, ihe effect on the minds of Egyptians of the war in Europe and the conflict at their gates with their co-religionists; the activities of propagandists, who seized a situation so advantageous for the pursuit of personal, political and religious interests; the great wealth accumulated by a small minority of society and the absence pf a corresponding imnrovement in the conditions of the majority; the so-called exactions of the army in grain and livestock; these, and many other factors, contributed to a considerable House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online. Copyright (c) 2006 ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.