270 Egypt
immunity. At last, assassins, lying in wait for Mr.
Anderson, Oriental Secretary to the Residency, were
given away by his native servant. The ambush was
ambushed, a conspirator turned King's evidence, and
the "Society for Revenge3' met its deserts. Fifteen
suspects were tried, three executed, and the rest im-
prisoned. But the organisation that had paid for and
promoted these attacks remained undiscovered.
Zaglul being restored to Egypt, Nationalism again took
the field as a political party, and lost no time in making
full use of its new constitutional liberties. At the first
elections in the autumn of 1923 Zaglul's Party of Inde-
pendence swept the country, getting ninety per cent.
of the votes and one hundred and seventy-seven seats
out of two hundred and fourteen. Zaglul acordingly
took office (January 27, 1924).
The Egyptian electoral system has peculiarities that
favour organisation, and the only party organisation in
the field was that of the Nationalists. But this does not
alone explain the elimination of the Liberal Constitu-
tionalists. The country considered their co-operation
with the British while the Constitution was being framed
as being, if not a treachery, at least a transaction with
the enemy. The reduction of the Moderates to a small
handful in the Chamber had, however, this advantage—
that it imposed on Zaglul and his followers the whole
responsibility for that further co-operation with the
British without which Government could clearly not be
carried on. For until the reserved points were settled
and the relations between the Empire and Egypt defined,
the Constitution was undoubtedly an insufficient guar-
antee against a British supremacy not fundamentally
different from that of the Protectorate. Which settle-
ment could only be reached by negotiation with the