272 Egypt
The conjunction of the first British Labour Ministry
with Zaglul's first Wafd Ministry under the new Con-
stitution would have seemed to be a coincidence most
favourable for a settlement. For it brought to power on
the one hand an Egyptian Government so representative
of nationalism that it could afford to make the necessary
concessions, and on the other hand, an Imperial Govern-
ment whose policy it was to allow the fullest possible in-
dependence to Egypt. Moreover, there were on both
sides Premiers with a public position among their own
peoples and a personal relationship between themselves
that made approaches to a real peace possible. That the
opportunity was missed was more the fault of Egypt than
of England. But there were failures on both sides. Mr.
Ramsay MacDonald was a Premier without a party
majority in the House of Commons who, in the circum-
stances, did not feel justified in revolutionising our official
attitude towards Egypt, while he was too much other-
wise occupied to be able to revitalise the moral atmo-
sphere in Egypt as well as in Europe. The Labour
Party, in the election of December, 1923, had declared
for the full independence of Egypt, and on coming into
power their Cabinet decided that this was compatible
with maintaining the Declaration of Independence and
its reservations. If Mr. MacDonald thereby made the
mistake of not sufficiently disassociating himself from his
predecessors, Zaglul, without the same excuse, for he had
a vast majority, made the worse mistake of not dissociat-
ing his Government from the previous campaign of
extremism and excesses. And it was not long before
these attitudes on both sides had made a very unfavour-
able atmosphere for settlement. So that no approach
could be made towards compromising or circumventing
the very fundamental issues involved in the reserved