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of an Egypt enjoying the national prerogatives and inter-
national position of a Sovereign State, but closely
wedded to the British Empire by a treaty guarantee of
common aims and interests/' Nevertheless, this con-
cession of the whole principle of national sovereignty did
not conceal certain very practical derogations from it.
Thus the Treaty maintained British troops in Egypt.
Whereas the Egyptians demanded that they should be
restricted to the Canal zone. It transferred to British
financial and judicial advisers—that is, to British imperial
control—the international controls of the Debt Com-
mission and of the Judicial Capitulations. Whereas
Egyptians had come to look upon these international
institutions as a protection against British imperialism.
It modified the Anglo-Egyptian condominium over the
Sudan by putting all the Egyptian forces there under the
British Governor-General. Whereas Egyptians saw in
the unworkable arrangement by which the British
Governor of the Sudan was also the Commander-in-
Chief in Egypt (Sirdar), a valuable survival of the
sovereign rights that they claimed over the Sudan. It
provided for the Egyptian interests in the Nile waters of
the Sudan by a board of three Conservators representing
Egypt, the Sudan, and Uganda; which, though in
appearance fair enough, did actually secure to the
British a permanent majority.
All these provisions had not only reasonable but almost
irrefutable arguments in their favour. But Egyptian
nationalism, under guidance of the Wafd, was now in
opposition and more concerned with asserting itself than
with arranging as to conflicting rights and responsibili-
ties. Opposition had also declared itself in Great Britain
to a dilatory diplomatising that was being continually
driven by fresh disorders into fresh discomfitures. The