On the Thigh

Sciatica is a form of neuralgia which causes the sciatic nerve in the thigh to twinge painfully. In Cairo last week fat King Fuad caused to be proclaimed as ostentatiously as possible that he was suffering from sciatica. This a great many Egyptians refused to believe. The populace grew restive.

Sciatica was His Majesty's excuse for not receiving Prime Minister Mustapha Nahas Pasha who had just returned from London. He went there weeks ago, hopeful because Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald had uttered a pledge to deal not only justly but generously with the Orientals whom Britain holds in tutelage (TIME, Aug. 19). The pledge had been preceded by withdrawing from Egypt the man who had ruled in Cairo with iron hand, Baron Lloyd of Dolobran, grim British High Commissioner. It seemed as though kindly Scot MacDonald was ready to make the "Independent Kingdom of Egypt" more nearly free and perhaps almost independent. But, unfortunately for Egyptians, the London Naval Conference distracted Mr. MacDonald's good intentions, and before he was through with the conference, India began to boil over. Instinctively the British attitude toward all Oriental peoples stiffened. Last week Mustapha Nahas Pasha returned from London without any sort of treaty or concession.

Because fat King Fuad is a British-subsidized puppet, such a development was ten times more painful than sciatica. He had hoped--how he had hoped!--that Nahas Pasha would get enough to keep Egyptians quiet, something at least that could be dangled before the people as a promise that freedom was just around the corner. Year after year Fuad's situation grows more grave. At every election the Egyptian people have shown by overwhelming majorities that they demand a lifting of the British de facto rule, an end to the situation which places the Egyptian Army under Inspector General Sir Charlton Watson Spinks, "Spinks Pasha," famed locust fighter (TIME, May 26).

Anguished in soul, King Fuad temporized, knows he is a cat which some day will have to jump.

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