3o6 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

campaign up to date; while the Egyptian Government agreed in future to pay the additional expenses likely to be caused to England by her military occupation of Egypt, these expenses being calculated as. in round numbers, jQ/ a month per soldier. The agreement also contained an expression of England's desire to withdraw her troops as soon as possible, and in any case to reduce their numbers as rapidly as circumstances could allow.

No great intelligence is required to prove that what has already happened was logically bound to happen ; and I do not think our civil and military authorities in Egypt can be justly blamed for not having foreseen the consequences of a decision they were called upon to take almost immediately after the suppression of the Arabi mutiny. If our occupation was to be temporary, we must obviously allow Egypt to be governed in the near future by a native administration, in accordance with Oriental ideas and customs.

If, on the other hand, we felt it our duty to govern the country during our occupation by English officials, acting upon English ideas of right and justice, our occupation must of necessity be prolonged, if not permanent. It is the nature of Englishmen to decide any question submitted to their judgment upon its individual merits, without much regard to the ulterior consequences which their decision may entail. The particular question which the English authorities were called upon to decide, after the suppression of the mutiny, was the punishment to be inflicted on