simple where, as in Servia and Montenegro, the people have never succumbed in heart and spirit to Turkish rule. But the more depressed countries of Asia Minor have not yet been touched, and, so soon as the Turkish Power finally collapses, tolerable governments must be found for the provinces belonging to the vacant inheritance. If the machinery of the new Egyptian Constitution be found to harmonize with the habits and spirit of a Mohammedan people in one country, it is not impossible it may do so in another. Any Power which is called to prescribe a regimen for such a province in the interest of the people, and not in its own, is sure to attempt to put in practice that which has been already proved a success; vote by ballot, minority representation, electors-delegate, provincial councils, and central assemblies of all sorts, will become as familiar for the provinces of what is now the Turkish Empire, as the vestry and the Court of Quarter Sessions are familiar in England, or the local" Parliaments" were in old France. The problem is, of course, simpler in Egypt than it is ever likely to be again elsewhere. It is not likely that, elsewhere, the circumstances will ever repeat themselves which have rendered England supreme in Egypt, without it being regarded as politically expedient to annex the country. In any other case, it is probable England, or any other like preponderant Power, would go farther or not so far. If it went farther, constitutional freedom would run a risk of being fettered and weakened. If it did not go so far, that freedom would not be protected and nourished into full-blown strength. But in Egypt, owing to the palsying effect of successful war upon all rival and intrusive influences, the precise conditions exist for England to try the highest form of constitutional experiment. And yet it is not of the nature of vivisection, because the experiment gives no pain, and involves no risk. The Constitution rather gives health and life so far as it goes, and wherever it goes. "Everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live." 1 END OF VOI. XLIII. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. SHELDON AMOS. |