QUESTIONABLE SNOBBERY

Great Britain has refused to submit her Egyptian troubles to the League of Nations. Indeed, the abruptness and vigor of the reprisals in Egypt made it extremely doubtful whether the Baldwin ministry ever gave a thought to the possibilities of a League settlement. Paradoxical as this attitude may seem upon the part of a nation that has long upheld the League, it is not entirely indefensible. The United States, with its Philippines, can readily appreciate the strength of the British assertion that the whole affair is purely a domestic one. Yet the quasi-independent status of Egypt might, without insult to reason, be considered as raising that nation slightly above the position of a British subject, and the British government might well, for the sake of the League, have restrained its eagerness to impress the oriental mind with an arbitrary gesture.

While the action of such a body can not be safely predicted, it appears unlikely that the League would have expressed disapproval of the English demands. Both France and Italy are influential in the proceedings of the League, and both France and Italy have interests and ambitions in Northern Africa. Consequently it is to their advantage that the North African peoples should cherish no dangerous ideas of nationalism, nor any hopes of successful defiance of European power. Spain has already set such ideas afoot by her incapacity to subdue the Moors, and France and Italy can ill afford to see the rise of similar convictions in Egypt. Great Britain, then, might logically hope for the support of these two powers during the League discussions, and such support would be by no means negligible. The suspicion grows that in withholding the dispute from the League the English government has passed by an opportunity to strengthen the prestige of the League with little risk of danger to itself.