330 Egypt
labour at a low stage of civilisation. That it is, therefore,
an oppression both of Egyptians and of Sudanese. Their
feelings, in fact, towards British capitalism in the Sudan
can, perhaps, best be understood by us if we imagine how
we should feel towards an invasion of India by Chinese
and Russian Communism.
This Egyptian case has already been answered in part
by previous paragraphs, showing that the Sudan is a
country with a past, a present, and a future of its own ;
and that the right of the British to rule it is at least as
good as that of the Egyptians. Nor is it the case that
cotton-growing in the Sudan has been created by us in
order to compete with the Egyptian cotton-fields that
have now escaped from our control. Not only the grow-
ing of cotton but the weaving of coarse cloth (damar)
was a principal and profitable industry in the Sudan long
before cotton cultivation became important to Egypt.
Jesuits, visiting Sennar in 1699, report a lively export
trade in cotton (Peacock, Land Settlement of the
Djezireh, 1913). Burckhardt, reporting on conditions a
century ago, writes that the cotton textiles of Sennar
and Baghirmy circulated throughout North Africa. The
Khedive Saad improved the cotton cultivation of the
Sudan by importing seed from Egypt.. But the industry
practically disappeared under the devastations and de-
populations of the Mahdi. With the reconquest the in-
dustry was revived by the British in the Gezireh. This
is the region bounded by the White and Blue Niles and
by the Sobat River, from which it gets its name "The
Island." Cotton cultivation is carried on at the apex of
this triangle between Khartum and the Sennar-Kosti
Railway. By 1910 the Sudan Plantations Syndicate was
producing cotton superior to that of Egypt, at Tayiba, by
pump irrigation from the Blue Nile. The success of this