ttlement which dispensed with the
Protectorate. The Mission unanimously came to the conclusion that though
the first was mechanically possible if the cost and discredit were
faced, the second was not only feasible but far preferable, and that the
right method was a treaty of Alliance between Great Britain and Egypt,
recognising Egypt as a sovereign State, but affording all necessary
guarantees for imperial interests. Working on those lines the Mission
gradually broke down the boycott proclaimed against them, convinced the
Egyptians of their goodwill, induced all parties of Egyptian
Nationalists to come to London, and there negotiated the basis of the
Treaty which was described in the Report. 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. The situation had, therefore, changed
again for the worse when Adli came to London in April, 1921, and it was
made worse still by what followed. The negotiations dragged over six
months, and finally broke down for reasons that have never been
explained, but the probability is that Egypt had now got entangled in
Coalition domestic politics, and that the "Die-Hards" claimed to have
their way in Egypt in return for their consent to the Irish settlement.
The door was now banged in the face of all schools of Egyptian