been launched. What was felt was that so
serious a step on such delicate ground could not have been adopted without
deliberate calculation, nor without some grave intention. The Note was,
therefore, taken to mean that the Sultan was to be thrust still further in
the background; that the Khedive was to become more plainly the puppet of
England and France; and that Egypt would sooner or later in some shape or
other be made to share the fate of Tunis. The general effect was,
therefore, mischievous in the highest degree. The Khedive was encouraged
in his opposition to the sentiments of his Chamber. The military,
national, or popular party was alarmed. The Sultan was irritated. The
other European Powers were made uneasy. Every element of disturbance was
roused into activity."

It is true that even if no Joint Note had ever been despatched, the
prospects of order were unpromising. The most careful analysis of the
various elements of society in Egypt by those best acquainted at first
hand with all those elements, whether internal or external, whether
Egyptian or European, and with all the roots of antagonism thriving among
them, exhibited no promise of stability. If Egypt had been a simple case
of an oriental government in revolutionary commotion, the ferment might
have been left to work itself out. Unfortunately Egypt, in spite of the
maps, lies in Europe. So far from being a simple case, it was
indescribably entangled, and even the desperate questions that rise in our
minds at the mention of the Balkan peninsula, of Armenia, of
Constantinople, offer no such complex of difficulties as the Egyptian
riddle in 1881-2. The law of liquidation(50)--whatever else we may think of
it--at least made the policy of Egypt for the Egyptians unworkable. Yet the
British cabinet were not wrong in thinking that this was no reason for
sliding into the competing policy of Egypt for the English _and_ the
French, which would have been more unworkable still.

England strove manfully to hold the ground that she (M30) had taken in
November. Lord Granville told the British ambassador in Paris that his
government disliked intervention either by themselves or anybody else as
much as ever; that they looked upon the experiment of the Chamber with
favourable eyes; that they wished to keep the connection of the Porte with
Egypt so far as it was compatible with Egyptian liberties; and that the
object of the Joint Note was to strengthen the existing governmen