consideration and discussion, my proposals admit of improvement. I need
not now dwell on these details, important though they be. I wish,
however, to allude to one point which involves a question of principle.
I trust that no endeavour will for the present be made to create one
Chamber, composed of both Europeans and Egyptians, with power to
legislate for all the inhabitants of Egypt. I am strongly convinced
that, under the present condition of society in Egypt, any such attempt
must end in complete failure. It is, I believe, quite impossible to
devise any plan for an united Chamber which would satisfy the very
natural aspirations of the Egyptians, and at the same time provide for
the Europeans adequate guarantees that their own legitimate rights would
be properly safeguarded. I am fully aware of the theoretical objections
which may be urged against trying the novel experiment of creating two
Chambers in the same country, each of which would deal with separate
classes of the community, but I submit that, in the special
circumstances of the case, those objections must be set aside, and that
one more anomaly should, for the time being at all events, be added to
the many strange institutions which exist in the "Land of Paradox."
Whether at some probably remote future period it will be possible to
create a Chamber in which Europeans and Egyptians will sit side by side
will depend very largely on the conduct of the Egyptians themselves. If
they follow the advice of those who do not flatter them, but who,
however little they may recognise the fact, are in reality their best
friends--if, in a word, they act in such a manner as to inspire the
European residents of Egypt with confidence in their judgment and
absence of class or religious prejudice, it may be that this
consummation will eventually be reached. If, on the other hand, they
allow themselves to be guided by the class of men who have of late years
occasionally posed as their representatives, the prospect of any
complete legislative amalgamation will become not merely gloomy but
practically hopeless. The true Egyptian patriot is not the man who by
his conduct and language stimulates racial animosity in the pursuit of
an ideal which can never be realised, but rather one who recognises the
true facts of the political situation. Now, the dominating fact of that
situation is that Egypt can never become autonomous in the sense in
which that word is understood by the Egyptian