4o8 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

Still less to be thought of. Thus, by a process of exhaustion, the partisans of withdrawal arrived at the conclusion that a Turkish military occupation under British supervision was the only practicable solution of the Egyptian difficulty. A similar solution had at different times been favoured by the preceding Administration.

But the attempts to carry this idea into execution had been made with so little energy, and with such vacillation of purpose, that it never got beyond the phase of contemplation. In the present instance, however, the idea, whether sound or unsound, assumed a practical form. Lord Iddesleigh — then Sir Stafford Northcote — was, I have reason to know, very anxious to have our troops withdrawn from Egypt. So also, I think, was Lord Salisbury, though, from his great knowledge of foreign affairs, he was far more alive to the difficulties and disadvantages inseparable from withdrawal. The other Ministers were, to say the least, not hostile to the idea, and were greatly influenced by the fact that Lord Wolseley, looking at the question from a purely military point of view, gave the support of his high authority in favour of withdrawal, on the ground that the maintenance of an army in Egypt constituted a source of weakness in the event — improbable, but not impossible — of an European war, in which England might be involved.

The initiative, however, in formulating a practical proposal for the execution of the idea came, if I am rightly informed, from a member of the Cabinet,