Jagged Facts

Egyptians streamed to the polls last week and proclaimed by their ballots exactly in what low esteem they hold the "Palace Cabinet" of Ahmed Ziwar Pasha. The potent Wafd, the party of Zaghlul, scored a smashing victory, secured 166 Deputies (out of 215) as opposed to 176 in the elections of 1924 and 101 in the elections of 1925. But the "Palace Party" (Unionist), which appeared for the first time at the polls last week, was so utterly repudiated as to obtain but five seats in the Chamber, two of them being disputed.

This recrudescence of Wafd supremacy among the electorate again threw into jagged relief the ugly fact that Premier Ziwar has continued since 1924 at the head of the Egyptian Cabinet almost solely because he is acceptable to Britain, the unseen but mighty tweaker of Egyptian puppet strings.*

The immediate result of last week's elections was to precipitate fresh agitation for the resignation of Ziwar as Premier and the installation of a Wafd Ministry. The Wafd's "grand old man," Saad Zaghlul Pasha, 66 (TIME, May 24), has, however, suffered marked ill health for some time and, despite his personal popularity, has failed thus far to rally Egyptians against the British with sufficient solidarity to force his return/-as Premier.

The "Palace Cabinet" persistently refused to resign, despite the utter rout of its nominal supporters at the polls. Its real backers were more than hinted at in a widely credited rumor that Lord Lloyd had demanded, as British High Commissioner to Egypt, that if a Wafd cabinet should be formed special guarantees must be given Britain respecting Suez and the Sudan. A despatch positively asserted that he had also demanded the right to "approve" the members of any new cabinet which might be formed "in the interests of public safety."

Britons rebuked U. S. citizens who pointed at Lord Lloyd last week the finger of reproof, by recalling the tactics of President Roosevelt with respect to the Panama Canal, certainly of no more importance to the U. S. than are Suez and the Sudan to Britain.

*The "benevolent" British Protectorate over Egypt was terminated in 1922 and Egypt declared an "independent sovereign state." None the less Lord Lloyd functions as British High Commissioner to Egypt, and an unobtrusive but efficient British Army of Occupation "protects" such areas of vital interest to Britain as the Suez Canal.

/-He became the first native Premier of Egypt in 1924. He resigned (TIME, Dec. 1, 1924) upon the exaction by Britain from the Egyptian Government of a -L-500,000 ($2,300,000) "fine" and other humiliating concessions because of the asassination by seven Egyptian students of Sir Lee Stack, Governor General of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.