292 Egypt
nationalist doctrine, the present Constitution is not an
emancipation of Egypt in virtue of a British declaration,
but an emanation of an inherent Egyptian sovereignty.
On the other hand, the British Foreign Office, while
quite prepared for an abstract argument as to British
rights and responsibilities under treaties, is, since 1924,
in a position to claim that an Egyptian Government has
accepted any interpretation that the British have chosen
to put on the reserved points and have specifically
accepted both the British adviserships in Egypt and the
British administration of the Sudan.
Assuming that negotiation can be engaged with a will
to agree on either side, it seems obvious that the general
line of least resistance towards a bargain would lead to
a real evacuation of Egypt by the British as against the
renunciation of the Sudan by Egypt, with recourse to
the League of Nations to get the guarantees required
for British interests in the Canal and for Egyptian
interests in the Nile. For the League offers an avenue
as yet unexplored for arriving at an agreed arrange-
ment of an international character between British Im-
perialism and Egyptian Nationalism. But such a solu-
tion would involve a much larger concession from the
British, who have recently assumed protection of all
international interests in Egypt, than it would from the
Egyptians, who have accepted a prolongation of the
Capitulations, and are anxious for association with
the League. Thus Egyptian Nationalists appealed to the
League in the crisis of 1924, and the King's Speech
opening Parliament in 1926 proposed that Egypt should
become a member of it. The British position, on the
other hand, is governed by the Note communicating to
Foreign Powers the Declaration of 1922. This declares
that our special interest in Egypt has been generally