The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

With good administration and public security the population increased steadily. The Sudan Government devoted much atten tion to the revival of agriculture and commerce, to the creation of an educated class of natives, and to the establishment of an adequate judicial system. It was made easier by the decision to govern, as far as possible, in accordance with native law and cus tom, no attempt being made to Egyptianize or Anglicize the Su danese. The Arab-speaking and Mohammedan population found their religion and language respected, and showed a marked desire to profit by the new order. To the negroes of the southern Sudan, who were exceedingly suspicious of all strangers—whom hitherto they had known almost exclusively as slave-raiders—the very elements of civilization had, in most cases, to be taught. In these pagan regions the Sudan Government encouraged the work of missionary societies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, while discouraging propaganda work among the Muslims.

Basis of Prosperity.

In their general policy the Sudan Gov ernment adopted a system of light taxation. Prosperity was largely the result. A short route to the sea being essential, a rail way from the Nile near Berber to the Red sea was built o6). It shortened the distance from Khartoum to the coast by nearly ff,000 miles. Sir Eldon Gorst (high commissioner in Egypt) after a tour of inspection declared in his report for 1909, "I do not suppose that there is any part of the world in which the mass of the population have fewer unsatisfied wants." The next development came out of the search for new cotton fields by the British Cotton Growing Association. Experiments had been made in 1911 as to whether long staple cotton could profitably be grown in the Gezira (the "island" between the White and Blue Niles immediately above Khartoum). At that time a railway was being built from Khartoum along the edge of the Gezira to Sennar and thence to Kordofan. This railway was opened in 1912; it brought the Gezira within easy reach of Khartoum besides rendering more easily accessible the rich gum and cattle areas of Kordofan. In the same year the Cotton Growing Associa tion experts who had visited the Sudan reported enthusiastically upon its cotton growing possibilities, with the result that in 1913 the British parliament guaranteed a loan of £3,000,000 for irri gation and railway schemes. Just at this time (1913-14) the value of any project which would give to large areas adequate water supplies by means of artificial irrigation received a striking demonstration. The 1913 rains were very bad and the river flood was the lowest recorded for more than a century, so that all over the northern Sudan, and particularly in the Gezira area, famine conditions obtained during the following winter. The situation

was saved by the Government importing corn from India, and it is probable that this contributed more than any other factor to the quiet in the Sudan during the World War.

The World War and After.

Fortunately rains and Nile flood alike were excellent in 1914. But Sudanese came into touch with European thought as well as European markets. The agitation among the Egyptian Nationalists for the ejection of the British from the Sudan was not without effect, and the national self-con sciousness which is dormant in every race showed signs of awak ening among that section of the people, mainly town dwellers, most receptive of new ideas. Happily 1920 was a year of prosperity, rich harvests and increasing trade, and the interests of the classes in question was largely centred on money making and the possi bilities of the Gezira irrigation scheme, on which preliminary work was being actively prosecuted. The Sudan, too, had the advantage of very able and sympathetic government under Sir Lee Stack who had succeeded Sir Francis Wingate as governor-general and sirdar. He was fully in sympathy with a recommendation made by the Milner Commission in 1920 that a policy should be pursued of "decentralization and the employment, wherever possible, of native agencies for the simple administrative needs of the coun try." This was indeed no new policy in the Sudan, but its authori tative restatement had value.

The only hindrance to an ordered and healthy political evolution in the Sudan, came as a reaction from political disturbances in Egypt. The Milner Commission recommended that whatever change was made in the relation between Great Britain and Egypt, British predominance in the Sudan should not be affected. Accord ingly, when in Feb. 1922 the independence of Egypt was declared, provision was made for the maintenance of the status quo in the Sudan. But the Nationalist party in Egypt demanded the hand ing over of the Sudan to Egypt and again conducted an active anti-British campaign of propaganda in the Sudan. There the position was complicated by the fact that the military garrison was furnished by the Egyptian army, consisting partly of purely Egyptian units but mainly of locally recruited units officered by Egyptians and Sudanese with a small addition of British officers. A "White Flag League" with funds from Egypt had been started in the Sudan, and a few disturbances occurred, including mutinies of the Egyptian Railway Battalion at Atbara, and of Sudanese cadets in Khartoum, in Aug. 1924, but the country was quiescent.