Steel and Gold," and by other writers, to show that our diplomacy is the
tool of international finance, and that the forces created by British
taxpayers for the defence of their country's honour, are used for the
sordid purpose of wringing interest for a set of money-grubbers in the
City, out of a poor and down-trodden peasantry overburdened by the
exactions and extortions of their rulers. Mr. Brailsford, of course,
puts his case much better than I can, in any brief summary of his views.
He has earned and won the highest respect by his power as a brilliant
writer, and by his disinterested and consistent championship of the
cause of honesty and justice, wherever and whenever he thinks it to be
in danger. Nevertheless, in this matter of the Egyptian war I venture to
think that he is mistaking the tail for the dog. Diplomacy, I fancy, was
not wagged by finance, but used finance as a very opportune pretext. If
Egypt had been Brazil, it is not very likely that the British fleet
would have shelled Rio de Janeiro. The bondholders would have been
reminded of the sound doctrine, _caveat emptor_, which signifies that
those who make a bad bargain have only themselves to blame, and must
pocket their loss with the best grace that they can muster. As it was,
Egypt had long ago been marked out as a place that England wanted,
because of its vitally important position on the way to India. Kinglake,
the historian, writing some three-quarters of a century ago, long before
the Suez Canal was built, prophesied that Egypt would some day be ours.
In Chapter XX. of "Eothen," comes this well known passage on the Sphynx
(he spelt it thus):--

"And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the
Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will
plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the
seats of the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will
lie watching, and watching the works of the new, busy race,