332 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

in order to render its acceptance less galling, his Highness was allowed to appoint Colonel Baker head of the police. Of all the anomalies encountered by the student of Anglo- Egyptian history, the one for which I have found it most difficult to suggest a possible explanation is, why — especially considering the nature of the offence which had wrecked his career — Valentine Baker should have been held by the British public to be unfit to be the head of the Egyptian army, but to be fit to be the head of the Egyptian police. I must leave it to others to solve what seems to me an insoluble problem, and pass on. I fail to see how the military necessities of Egypt could have been better provided for than they were by Lord Dufferin's scheme for the reorganization of the Egyptian army under British officers. The only objection to the scheme is that an army so constituted can never be a good training-school for developing any military ability the native officers may by chance possess. In other words, an army officered by foreigners may be a very efficient military force, but can never be a national army. Yet the possession of a national army, supposing such a thing to be possible, is an essential condition of Egypt being ever in a position to resume her independent existence.

Nevertheless, if one makes allowance for the limitations under which Lord Dufferin had to exercise his functions, no criticism on what he accomplished can be otherwise than favourable. Criticism on what he failed to accomplish would be easy enough, if it were