en existence in the chamber of notables. The
soldiers found a head in Arabi, a native Egyptian, sprung of fellah
origin. Want either of stern resolution or of politic vision in the
Khedive and his minister had transferred the reality of power to the
insurgents. The Sultan of Turkey here saw his chance; he made a series of
diplomatic endeavours to reestablish a shattered sovereignty over his
nominal feudatory on the Nile. This pretension, and the spreading tide of
disorder, brought England and France actively upon the scene. We can see
now, what expert observers on the spot saw then, that the two Powers
mistook the nature of the Arabist movement. They perceived in it no more
than a military rising. It was in truth national as well as military; it
was anti-European, and above all, it was in its objects anti-Turk.

In 1879 the two governments had insisted on imposing over Egypt two
controllers, with limited functions but irremovable. This, as Mr.
Gladstone argued later, was to bring foreign intervention into the heart
of the country, and to establish in the strictest sense a political
control.(46) As a matter of fact, not then well known, in September 1879
Lord Salisbury had come to a definite understanding with the French
ambassador in London, that the two governments would not tolerate the
establishment in Egypt of political influence by any competing European
Power; and what was more important, that they were prepared to take action
to any extent that might be found necessary to give effect to their views
in this respect. The notable acquisition by Lord Beaconsfield of an
interest in the Suez Canal, always regarded by Mr. Gladstone as a
politically ill-advised and hazardous transaction, had tied the English
knot in Egypt still tighter.

The policy of the Gladstone cabinet was defined in general words in a
despatch from the foreign minister to the British agent at Cairo. Lord
Granville (November 1881) disclaimed any self-aggrandising designs on the
part of either England or France. He proclaimed the desire of the cabinet
to uphold in Egypt the administrative independence secured to her by the
decrees of the sovereign power on the Bosphorus. Finally he set forth that
the only circumstances likely to force the government of the Queen to
depart from this course of conduct, would be the occurrence in Egypt of a
state of anarchy.(47)

Justly averse to a joint occupation of Egypt by England and France, as the
most perilous o