LORD DUFFERIN'S REPORT 327 of view has proved conducive to the interests of England is, of course, another question.

In pursuance of the assumption that our occupation was to be of brief duration, Lord Dufferin was requested to remain in Egypt, after the trial and deportation of Arabi, in order to advise the Khedive as to the reforms required to place Egypt in such a position of stable security as to allow her to dispense with the presence of the army of occupation. To put the matter plainly, his Lordship held for some months, after the mutiny had been put down, a position analogous to that of a British Resident in a native Indian State under British protection. For the time being his advice was tantamount to a command ; his word was law. In the remarkable report in which Lord Dufferin recorded the results of his mission, there occurs a passage which seems to my mind to suggest that if he had had a free hand, he would have recommended this temporary • arrangement being made permanent. The passage referred to is this — •* Had I been commissioned to place affairs in Egypt on the footing of an Indian subject State, the outlook would have / been different The masterful hand of a Resident would have quickly bent everything to his will, and in the space of five years we should have greatly added to the national wealth and well-being of the country by the extension of its cultivated area and the consequent expansion of its revenue ; by the partial, if not total, abolition of the corvee and slavery ; the establishment of justice and other beneficent reforms. . . . Her Majesty's Government and the public opinion in England have pronounced against such an alternative."