EGYPT UNDER BRITISH SUPERVISION. 441 repulse of the Dervish invasion, she might have treated Egypt as we treat the native States in India.

Had we done so, we should have saved ourself an H infinity of complications, and should have established J a system of government far more in accordance with Oriental ideas and interests than the system of to-day, under which every administrative department is virtually under the control of British officials. Unfortunately, as I have endeavoured to show, our Government repudiated the idea of any permanent Protectorate, and sought to justify the indefinite prolongation of our military occupation by the plea that we could not leave Egypt till we had reorganized her institutions on such a basis as to secure her immunity from external attack or from . internal disturbance after the departure of our troops.

The maintenance of this plea involved the necessity of our actively undertaking the work of reorganization. We soon learnt, as our Indian experience ought to have taught us, that the reorganization of an Eastern country, in accordance with British ideas, could only be conducted satisfactorily under the direct control of British officials. Thus the establishment- | of a system of British supervision, or, in other words, of a native Administration acting under the orders of British officials, was imposed upon us by the logic of facts. This system was in exact antagonism to that which Nubar had expected us to adopt, and which we might, under other conditions, have adopted with advantage to ourselves and to Egypt — that of leaving