353 Eeports by His Majesty’s Agent and Consul-General on the Finances,. Administration, and Condition of Egypt and the Soudan in 1909.

No.], Sir E. Gorst to Sir Edward Grey.—{Beceived April 2.)

Sir, Cairo, March 26, 1910.

I HAVE the honour to submit my report on the progress made in the various Departments of the Egyptian Government during the year 1909.

I. GENERAL.

1. General Situation.

The last days of the period over which this report extends were marked by one of those terrible and futile political crimes which from time to time disgrace the age in which we live, but from which Egypt has hitherto been happily free. On Sunday, the 20th February, Boutros Ghali Pasha, the late Prime Minister, was fatally wounded as he was leaving his office by the hand of one of those miserable creatures of feeble intellect and, disordered.ideas, who are unconscious dupes of the greater criminals, who preach violent methods, which they are afraid themselves to carry into effect.. The motives of the crime were purely political. The murderer had no personal grudge against his victim, and was nob acting under the influence of religious fanaticism, and in defence of his deed merely repeated the accusations which have, in season and out of season, been alleged against Boutros Pasha, in violent and threatening langiiage, iu the columns of the Nationalist press. Though their wretched and -misguided follower will pay the penalty, I have no hesitation in saying that the leaders of the Nationalist party are morally responsible for the murder of Boutros Pasha. For years past they have promoted and fomented these attacks, in full knowledge of the fact that their words could not fail to stir the ignorant and excitable youths to whom they were addressed to the acts of violence which they now pretend to deplore. It is an example of the irony of fate that the blow due to the criminal incitements of these self-styled patriots should have fallen upon the first genuine Eo-yptian who has risen to the highest position in the service of his country.

Boutros Ghali Pasha was born in 1846, and, after a long and distinguished official career, first entered the Ministry in 1893, as Minister of Finance. In the following year he was appointed Minister of Foreign Afiains, in which office he remained until the day of his death. On the retirement of Moustajffia Fehmy Pasha in November 1908, he was summoned by the Khedive to form the administration which has just been brought to so untimely a conclusion. The valuable services which throughout his official life he rendered to his country, and the loyalty and integrity which he displayed in many difficult and delicate situations, are so well known that I need not expatiate on them here. His death at the present time is an irreparable loss to Egypt, and it will be long before the Khedive and his country find a more devoted, single-minded, and capable servant.

Mohammed Said Pasha, whose sixteen months’ tenure of the Ministry of the Interior had been marked by important reforms rendered possible owing to the cordial relations subsisting between himself and the Adviser, was selected as the Prime [384] BA-House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online. Copyright (c) 2006 ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.