The main points were that
there must be a British force in the country--not an army of occupation,
but a force to guard Imperial communications--that there must be British
liaison officers for law and order and finance, that the control of
foreign policy must remain in the hands of Great Britain, and that the
Soudan settlement of 1898 must remain untouched, but that with these
exceptions the Government of Egypt should be in fact what it had always
been in theory: a Government of Egyptians by Egyptians.
Had the Government accepted this in December, 1920 (instead of in March,
1922), and instructed Lord Milner to go forward and draft a treaty on
this basis, it is extremely probable that a settlement would have been
reached in a few weeks; but Ministers, unhappily, were unable to make up
their minds, and there was a further delay of three months before the
Egyptian Prime Minister, Adli Pasha, was invited to negotiate with the
Foreign Office. By this time the Nationalist parties which the Mission
had succeeded in uniting on a common platform had fallen apart, and the
extremists once more started a violent agitation and upbraided the
moderates for tamely waiting on the British Government, which had
evidently meant to deceive them.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169