CHAPTER VI
NATIONALIST RENASCENCE
ABBAS—GORST—KITCHENER
" Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew no
Joseph."—EXOD, i. 3.
THE first foreign financial adviser in Egypt of which we
have a record was Joseph. His nationalisation of agri-
cultural land, based on State trading in corn, and his
colonisation of the most fertile province of Egypt with his
fellow-countrymen were not likely to be sustained once
he and his patron were gone. Cromerism and its patron
British Conservatism had now to face the same reaction.
For Egyptian nationalism with the new century took on a
new form. Under Mehemet Ali it had appeared merely as
riotings of the town mob in connection with the struggles
for power between factions of the foreign ruling class—
Mamelukes, Turks, Arnauts, etc. Later it appeared
more recognisably in an insurrection of the army, as
representing the peasantry, in co-operation with the Con-
stitutionalist progressives of the ruling class. But both
these manifestations of nationalism were centred in and
practically confined to the upper and lower strata of the
nation. The new form of nationalism, that which is still
to the fore, is a movement originating in a new middle
class. This nationalism of the effendiat is certainly less
attractive than that of the fellaheen under Arabi or of
the Beys under Mehemet Ali, The Beys were gallant,
and many of them cultured gentlemen, whose feats of
arms raised Egypt to the level of a European Power.
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