302 Egypt
few other foreigners. Shortly before the war the Mixed
Tribunals ruled that an addition of five per cent, to the
land tax for primary education was not applicable to
foreigners, as the schools were of no use to them. And
this ruling was duly accepted. We still see, therefore,
whole colonies of merchants who are native Egyptians
in everything but nationality, and who profit from resi-
dence in Egypt to the extent of making large fortunes out
of the country, yet who are still exempt from all rates and
taxes except the limited land tax and very low import
duties. Is this a situation which we could use a British
garrison to maintain ?
Finally, before leaving this question of foreign protec-
tion, it will be observed that once this question is cleared
of all considerations of protection for imperial communica-
tions that are peculiar to Egypt, and as soon as it is
considered, not as a strategic, but as a political matter,
that it becomes evident how the whole argument for
military protection is based on an obsolete outlook. Egypt
has been less subject to disorder, and is much more
exposed to our diplomatic pressure, than countries with
far more important British and foreign commercial con-
nections in which we have accepted new native courts
and codes and liability to local taxation without even the
mitigation of a mixed judicature. Moreover, unless the
intention is to establish any minority eventually as a
separate nation, its*protection by any particular great
Power is objectionable as doing it more harm than good.
Our protection of Ottoman Christians under the Treaty
of Berlin in no way prevented, but rather provoked,
their oppression and ended in their complete elimina-
tion by the f< exchange of populations " sanctioned at
Lausanne.
Nor is there any community in Egypt requiring pro-