Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1922-02-19 | Page 20 | Egypt Stands as Menace to British Safety

EGYPT STANDS AS MENACE TO . j BRITISH SAFETY Becomes Second Ireland, I But Is Larger and More Dangerous RELIGION BIG FACTOR Boycott Is Newest Weapon Adopted By Leaders Of Unrest (By N'EA Service) LONDON, Feb. 18. Eo'pt today Is n second Ireland, bigger and more dangerous, menacing the peace and -'ii'e;y of the British empire. Egypt wants Its Independence. nd it has IS, 000, 000 people, mostly Mo-hammedftlSi Mo-hammedftlSi while southern Irishmen .similarly struggling for liberty numbered num-bered only 3,000,000. Religion is a big factor !n tho Egvp-tian Egvp-tian situation for trouble with the Moslems there means unrest nniong tin .Mohammedans of India. A tit k-i k-i liah complication Is that Egypt contains con-tains the Suez Canal, tho Jugular vein, of the British empire and the route1 , to India. What has happened reads like nn i extract from the story of Ireland tho rigors of ma nail law. suppression of I the native press arrest and deporta- tlon of Moslem leaders, armored cars i patrolling the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, machine guns and airplanes air-planes and naval forces mobilised, I peaceful demonstrations and riots I that have been bloody. I .Yir si u;i n !iV( oTT Boycott is the newest weapon the I Egyptians have adopted as the Sinn I Folners did with U'ster. as Ghandl's I followers are doinc In India Tho boycott manifesto was read in every mosque And the leaders who signed It were promptly arrested and every Arabic paper publishing It was suppressed. The closing sentence of tho manifesto was this: "God forbid that your bodies should touch English goods after today and that your hands should co-operate with any Englishman." Leaders In the Egyptian unrest are Say id Zaghlul Pusha, rcpresentath t of the extreme nationalists and Adly Pa- 1 aha. representative of the moderates. Zaghlul. a pure-blooded Egyptian, I wan onco minister of education and has tremendous influence throughout tho Mohammedan world. Adly is a cousin of the present sultan, vice president pres-ident of the legislative assembly minister min-ister of foreign affairs, and premier until his recent resignation. Egypt has no premier now. for no I Egyptian statesman will form a cabinet cabi-net since Adly refused, because they ; artfue it would be recognition of British Brit-ish sovereignty. The British high i commissioner Is Lord Allenby. of McSopotamian fame during the war. K Gil ES IMPETUS. Britain's real troubles with Egypt date from the time of tho war. Kor j SO years Egypt had been nominally a ' part of the Turkish empire, but had ' its own khedive. In IS82 Britain occupied Egypt. ' gradually tightening Us hold. When the war broke out in 1914 and the khedive proclaimed allegiance to Turkey, Tur-key, Britain de-poseil him, seated a new sultan and established a protectorate. Two days after the armistice, Zagh- lul Pasha, in the name of tho Eg p- I tlan people .called upon Great Britain . to glvo the country complete independence inde-pendence as a reward lor tho admitted admit-ted help Egypt had given tho allies. The demand was Ignored. Trouble started and reprisals followed.' Zaghlul Zagh-lul was deported to Malta, later released re-leased and recently was deported to Cc-ylon. Britain tried to solve the Egyptian problem by sending a commission headed by Lord Milner to investigate the siiuation Adly Pasha brought Milner and Zaghlul together and a solution so-lution was practically agreed upon, only to bo upset by Lord Curzon, minister min-ister for foreign affairs The main bone of contention was military occupation, which the Egyptians Egyp-tians figured mado all the other proposed pro-posed concessions useless Adly Immediately Im-mediately resigned as premier, thus Joining Zachlul and throwing the moderates mod-erates and the extremists together against what they considered a common com-mon enemy. . oo