Egypt and the Sudan 335
lack of land than of water, and will therefore no longer
concern ourselves. But this answer, conveyed as it is
in British official and technical reports, has not as yet
convinced Egyptian opinion. Seeing that, unfortunately,
Egyptian nationalism has found in this question of Nile
water an opportunity for anti-British propaganda that
appeals to every Egyptian peasant, its Nile campaign
has been conducted with great virulence, and has taken
the form of impeaching not only the competence but the
integrity of British officials and experts. Nor has the im-
pression made by these accusations been removed by the
results of two lengthy and costly trials and by the reports
of two Egyptian Commissions of Inquiry that entirely
refutecf the accusations. Of the two Commissions
appointed the report of the first only has as yet been
published. This report effectively dispels the illusion that
British experts employed in the service of Egypt, like Sir
William Willcox and Sir Murdoch MacDo'nald, dis-
criminated against Egypt in their schemes for storages
of Nile water in the Sudan. On the contrary, it shows
that Egyptian interests have been throughout paramount
with them.
Nevertheless, the awkward fact remains that Egyptian
opinion has now no confidence in our impartiality, and
that the construction of all future engineering works for
irrigating Egypt will be carried out on territory outside
Egyptian control. So long as British engineers and
British enterprise was developing the Nile wholly in Egypt
and solely for Egyptians all went well But, with the last
Cromer scheme, the Assuan dam (1902), the limit of an
easy exploitation of the Egyptian Nile was reached. This
does not mean that Egypt could not do a good deal more
than has been done, even now, within its own borders. But
since then all the great schemes have had their site in