Nationalist Renascence 197
gained, on the exchange. Kitchener was, in fact, only
waiting for a suitable opportunity to depose Abbas, and
the outbreak of war only hastened this inevitable end to
their duel. Probably by that time the Khedive had be-
come as impossible for our purposes and from our point
of view as he is generally represented. Even Gorst be-
fore leaving had apparently almost given him up. But
it is not fair to refuse Abbas credit for acting under
patriotic and public-spirited motives.
In other respects, Kitchener's regime was so well
received that but for its interruption by the war it might
have saved us from the rebellion. Though it is probable
that something of the sort must have come when
Kitchener went; and that, too, with all the more
violence the longer it was postponed. But under the
new Constitution the Provincial Councils and Municipali-
ties had been given real powers of local government,
which might have occupied provincial politicians with
developing their educational and administrative machinery
for many years. The new Legislative Assembly, which
had replaced the old Legislative Council and General
Assembly, had provided really representative institutions
which would soon have educated the electorate in the
use of the vote and the elected In the exercise of a new
right of suspensory veto. The Organic Law was, in fact,
an example of cautious approach to self-government
much like the India Councils Act of 1909.
The Assembly was composed of sixty-six members,
elected, as before, by indirect suffrage, and of seven-
teen governmental members representing minorities and
various interests. Its powers were only consultative, and
even more confined than those of the old Legislative
Council; excluding, as they did, all international affairs
and the Civil List—the latter a small sop to the Khedive,