so full of other work that Lord Cromer felt that he could not reasonably ask him to spare the time for the preparation of an elaborate Report. Lord Cromer therefore himself drew up a Report based upon a mass of Papers collected by Sir Reginald. In this the General Situation is thus described :

The territorial situation may be briefly described as follows:

The frontier between the Soudan and the Italian Colony of Erythraea has now been delimitated from Ras Kasar, on the Red Sea, to Sabderat, a few miles east of Kassala.

Negotiations are proceeding which will, without doubt, result before long in the delimitation of the small remaining portion of the Italian frontier from Sabderat up to the point where it strikes Abyssinian territory.

The most friendly relations exist between the British and Abyssinian Governments.

The general basis of a frontier arrangement in respect to the country lying west of the Blue Nile has already been settled with the Emperor Menelik. When the survey party, now being employed, has finished its work, it may confidently be expected that the detailed delimitation will be carried out without much difficulty.

I have already stated in my Egyptian Report that an endeavour is being made to cut through the sudd which obstructs the White Nile, and thus open up communication with Uganda. To a certain extent this communication may be said to be already established, for a mixed party, consisting of British, French, and Belgian officers, with their followers, arriving from the South, recently succeeded in getting through and joining the Egyptian party, under Major Peake, which was engaged in cutting the sudd.

Turning to the provinces which lie west of the Nile, it is to be observed that, on the 17th December, El-Obeid was occupied by an Egyptian force under Colonel Mahon. The town was found to be deserted and in ruins, but the supply of water was reported to be abundant. Further, a large quantity of building materials exists in the town. The reoccupation of Kordofan is said to have given great satisfaction to the natives.

The Province of Darfour is at present governed by Sheikh Ali Dinar, grandson of the late Sultan Hussein, whose relations with the Government of the Soudan are of the most friendly character.

I proceed to describe briefly the present condition of the inhabitants of Kordofan, and of the desert tribes of the Soudan.

From the moment of the Khalifa's crushing defeat at Omdurman, the desert and Kordofan tribes, with the exception of a certain number of Baggaras who still

adhered to the cause of their Chief, threw in their lot with the Government. Most of these tribes, however, rendered but little active assistance to the Government in the subsequent operations against the Khalifa.

Omdurman and the Ghezireh* were found to be full of Arabs belonging to the Kordofan and far western tribes, who had been brought from their homes by the Khalifa. They were without any regular means of subsistence, but, in the existing state of insecurity, it was for the time being impossible for them to return to their own districts.

The number of these waifs and strays was constantly increased by the arrival of deserters, mostly Baggaras, from the Khalifa's army. Although the Arabs whose grazing-grounds lay sufficiently far to the north to be safe gradually returned to their homes, the inhabitants of the districts which were raided by the Dervishes were obliged to take refuge in the Ghezireh, with the result that the situation remained practically unchanged until the Khalifa's overthrow and death. Since then, the main objects of the Government have been to send back to their homes the inhabitants of the gumproducing region, and to get rid of the useless mouths from the Ghezireh. respect to the first point, some success has attended their efforts, but many thousands of Arabs belonging to tribes whose homes are in Kordofan and Darfour, still remain in the Ghezireh; neither is it likely that this situation will undergo any material change until the road to Bara and El-Obeid is thoroughly opened up and the water supply improved.

In

The attitude of the Nubas and of other tribes in Central and Southern Kordofan has, since the battle of Omdurman, been perfectly satisfactory. Beyond annoying the Dervishes with petty raids, they were, however, unable to do anything to help the Government during the Khalifa's lifetime. Since his death, they have sent deputations to the Government, and expressed their willingness to obey its commands.

One of the most serious difficulties which the Government has had to encounter is due to the fact that a large number of fire-arms were, and to a certain extent still are, in the possession of the Arabs. Some of these arms were issued by the Government to be used as a means of defence against the Dervishes. Others were procured from the Dervishes themselves. Since the overthrow of the Khalifa, they have been used for purposes of inter-tribal raiding. The first step taken was to call in all the fire-arms. A large number were recovered from the Bayuda tribes and the riverain population

*Literally, the Island. In this case the name is given to the tract of country lying south of Khartoum, between the White and Blue Niles.

south of Berber. In these districts, and, in fact, in all those parts of the country which have as yet in any degree fallen under the direct administration of the Government, raiding may be said to have practically ceased; but the more remote districts, the population of which still retain their arms, are still in a more or less unsettled condition.

Some long time must certainly elapse before prosperity returns to the tribes in the Soudan. The population has wasted away under Dervish rule. A recent Report says: "The important Kabbabish and Shukurieh tribes, who have suffered most, are now mere shadows of what they once were. . . . The Baggaras have suffered almost as much. Instead of being possessors of large herds of cattle, many of them, including several of their chief men, are now picking up a precarious existence in the Ghezireh or in Gedaref, working for hire or trying their hands at unfamiliar occupations. Some few, it is true, have accepted the situation, and made some progress with their cultivation, but the bulk of them are both lazy and unskilful, and prefer living on roots and berries to settling down to regular agriculture."

Financial Control.-The main lines of the administration under which the Soudan is now governed were laid down in the Agreement signed on the 19th January, 1899, between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of His Highness the Khedive. The purely administrative portion of that Agreement was based on a recognition of the evils which are likely to ensue from a system of over-centralization. Large powers were conferred on the Governor-General of the Soudan. In practice it was intended that those powers should be exercised after consultation with the proper authorities, whether British or Egyptian, in London and Cairo, as circumstances might demand.

The important question of financial control was treated outside the Agreement. As it is probable that, for some years to come, the Soudan will constitute a charge on the Egyptian Treasury, it is manifest that some degree of control must be exercised by the Egyptian Financial Department over the conduct of Soudanese finance. The main object which it has been sought to attain is to institute a system calculated to afford an adequate guarantee to the Financial Department against the creation of a state of affairs which might cause serious embarrassment to the Egyptian Treasury, whilst it would, at the same time, admit of such a degree of latitude being left to the GovernorGeneral of the Soudan as to obviate any risk that the financial control exercised from Cairo should involve unnecessary interference in matters of local detail.

This matter formed the subject of discussion between Lord Kitchener, Mr.

Gorst, and myself at Omdurman in January, 1899, with the result that some simple regulations were framed, and were subsequently approved by the Egyptian Council of Ministers. The main features of these regulations are that the Soudan Budget shall be annually submitted to and approved by the Council of Ministers; that the Governor-General of the Soudan and his Financial Secretary are made responsible that the total amount granted from Egyptian revenues for the Soudan is not exceeded in any one year; that any special or unforeseen expenditure must be defrayed by special grants, which must be sanctioned by the Egyptian Council of Ministers; that the Ministry of Finance has at all times the right of supervision, audit, or inspection of the whole of the financial arrangements of the Soudan; but that-and this is a very important provision-the Governor-General of the Soudan can, on his own authority, and without reference to Cairo, transfer credits from one head of account to another, provided that his total expenditure does not exceed the aggregate sum made up by the addition of the Soudan revenues to the Egyptian grant, as fixed by the Budget.

It is as yet too early to form an opinion of the practical working of this system.

amount of extraordinary expenditure was incurred. To this I will presently allude. In the first instance, however, I propose to compare the actuals and estimates of the ordinary account.

In view of the fact that, when the Estimates for 1899 were framed, but little trustworthy information was available to guide the authorities of the Soudan, it can be no matter for surprise that their anticipations were not in all cases realised. It is, however, satisfactory to note that they erred on the pessimist rather than on the optimist side.

The revenue for 1899 was approximately as follows:

From the Moudiriehs

It will be seen that the expenditure on administration was £E.26,000 less than the estimate. The charge of £E.8,000 for the purchase of grain was exceptional. It was due to the high price of grain, and to the presence of a large number of destitute people in Omdurman and the neighbourhood. The Post Office and Telegraph expenditure was £E.11,000 in excess of the estimate. There is no reason to regret this expenditure. "The government of the country," as Mr. Harman, the Financial Secretary of the Government of the Soudan, says in a recent Report, "is practically conducted by the telegraph wire." The estimate of £E.50,000 for railway expenditure was a

Deficit to be charged to the Egyptian

Government .

134,000

In addition to this, an extraordinary grant of £E.15,000 has been made for the construction of bridges south of the Atbara.

The total charge on the Egyptian Treasury during the current year will be:

outlay on the Soudan may be desirable, or indeed necessary, the expenses of government, apart from the Railway, will, at no distant date, be covered by the revenue.* The deficit is not so large as it appears, as the Customs receipts taken at Port Said and Alexandria on foreign goods going into and from the Soudan are at present retained by the Egyptian Government. This item will grow as population and trade increases."

The Report then proceeds to deal with the ownership of land, taxation, trade, Justice, education, and so forth. As to Slavery, there is the following, which should be read in the light of the quotations from the report referred to (see POLITICIAN'S HANDBOOK, Africa-Egypt, 1900 issue) :

In my last annual Report I expressed the hope and belief that anti-slavery operations would, in the future, be greatly facilitated by the reconquest of the Soudan. I see no reason to alter this opinion. At the same time, it must be confessed that, in so far as the traffic in slaves is concerned, the results obtained up to the present have been somewhat disappointing.

At

Unquestionably, the difficulty of guarding all the routes and outlets over a tract so vast as the Soudan is very great. the same time, it has to be remembered that, although the battle of Omdurman took place early in September, 1898, it was not until late in November, 1899, that the Khalifa was finally overthrown. Now that the country is practicallytranquillized, and military operations in the field have ceased, I am hopeful that the GovernorGeneral will be able to take this matter vigorously in hand, and check the traffic to which Captain McMurdo has drawn attention. In the meantime, I observe from a return communicated by Colonel Maxwell, recently Governor of Omdurman, that no less than forty-seven individuals were brought to justice in the course of last year for kidnapping, buying and selling slaves, etc., and were condemned to various terms of penal servitude or imprisonment.

The progress in the direction of gradually getting rid of the institution of slavery is certainly greater than, having regard to the very great difficulties which beset this question, I anticipated when I wrote my Report for 1898.

The Report closes with the following Statement and Conclusion:

I annex to this Report extracts from a Memorandum which was issued early in

Mr. Harman is, of course, here only speaking of the Civil expenses.

The remainder of the Memorandum deals at some length with matters of administrative detail. It is important, but I have thought it unnecessary to reproduce it in this place.

1899 by Lord Kitchener to the provincial authorities of the Soudan, and which contains instructions for their guidance. These instructions appear to be generally well adapted to the special circumstances under which the task of administering the Soudan has to be undertaken. They indicate with sufficient clearness the spirit in which it is intended that the work shall be conducted.

I need hardly say that much depends on the manner in which these instructions are carried out. I have before me a series of reports addressed by the Mudirs of the various provinces to the Governor-General. They are too lengthy to reproduce textually. I omit a quantity of multifarious but important detail connected with the administration of schools, hospitals, prisons, etc. I have, however, thought that the best method of giving some accurate idea both of the general condition of the country and of the spirit in which its administration is being conducted would be to give some extracts from the reports, in order that the officers concerned may tell their own tale in their own language. These extracts are, therefore, annexed to this despatch.

I may say that the reports leave the most favourable impression on my mind. It will be remembered that they are written by officers of the Army who until quite recently have had but little or no experience in the work of Civil administration. It is, however, clear that they take the most lively interest in their Civil duties. Their reports are straightforward, business-like documents, and seem to me characterised throughout by excellent common-sense and by a keen appreciation of the facts with which they have to deal. I have no doubt whatever that, with encouragement and a very little guidance on some few matters of principle, these officers constitute the best possible agents for the administration of a country in the present condition of the Soudan. I deprecate any excessive amount of interference with their actions. I have already alluded to the undesirability of attempting to govern the Soudan from Cairo. The policy of decentralization admits, I venture to think, of being carried still further. Harm will be done if any attempt is made to regulate all the details of the administration from Khartoum. Within reasonable limits, a certain amount of latitude should be left to the Mudirs, notably as regards the extent to which it is just and expedient to press the collection

of taxes.

Conclusion. The main problem which had to be solved in the Soudan during the course of last year was how to start the machine of Government without making any serious mistakes, which it might be difficult to rectify hereafter. It is highly probable that some of the measures which have so far been adopted,

and of which a brief description is given above, will require modification by the light of the increased experience which will now be gained of the condition and requirements of the country, but I hope and believe that the administrative system which has been established is, in so far as its main lines are concerned, adapted to the special circumstances with which the British and Egyptian Governments have to deal. I have, etc. (Signed) CROMER.

Coming to the extracts referred to, the Memorandum to Mudirs gives a sufficiently clear idea of the principles upon which the Soudan is being administered :

The absolute uprootal by the Dervishes of the old system of Government has afforded an opportunity for initiating a new Administration more in harmony with the requirements of the Soudan.

2. The necessary Laws and Regulations will be carefully considered and issued as required, but it is not mainly to the framing and publishing of laws that we must look for the improvement and the good government of the country.

3. The task before us all, and especially the Mudirs and Inspectors, is to acquire the confidence of the people, to develop their resources, and to raise them to a a higher level. This can only be effected by the District Officers being thoroughly in touch with the better class of native, through whom we may hope gradually to influence the whole population. Mudirs and Inspectors should learn to know personally all the principal men of their district, and show them, by friendly dealings and the interest taken in their individual concerns, that our object is to increase their prosperity. Once it is thoroughly realised that our officers have at heart, not only the progress of the country generally, but also the prosperity of each individual with whom they come into contact, their exhortations to industry and improvement will gain redoubled force. Such exhortations when issued in the shape of Proclamations or Circulars effect little; it is to the individual action of British officers, working independently but with a common purpose, on the individual natives whose confidence they have gained that we must look for the moral and industrial regeneration of the Soudan.

4. The people should be taught that the truth is always expected, and will be equally well received whether pleasant or the reverse. By listening to outspoken opinions, when respectfully expressed, and checking liars and flatterers, we may hope in time to effect some improvement in this respect in the country.

5. In the administration of justice in your province you should be very careful to see that legal forms, as laid down, are strictly adhered to, so that the appointed Courts may be thoroughly respected; and

you should endeavour, by the careful inquiry given by your Courts to the cases brought before them, to inspire the people with absolute confidence that real justice is being meted out to them. It is very important that the Government should do nothing which could be interpreted as a sign of weakness, and all insubordination must be promptly and severely suppressed. At the same time, a paternal spirit of correction for offences should be your aim in your relation with the people, and clemency should be shown in dealing with first offences, especially when such may be the result of ignorance, or are openly acknowledged. In the latter case, they should be more than half pardoned in order to induce truthfulness.

6. Be careful to see that religious feelings are not in any way interfered with, and that the Mohammedan religion is respected.

7. Mosques in the principal towns will be rebuilt, but private mosques, takias, zawiyas, sheikhs' tombs, etc., cannot be allowed to be re-established, as they generally formed centres of unorthodox fanaticism. Any request for permission on such subjects must be referred to the Central Authority.

8. Slavery is not recognised in the Soudan, but as long as service is willingly rendered by servants to masters it is unnecessary to interfere in the conditions existing between them. Where, however, any individual is subjected to cruel treatment, and his or her liberty interfered with, the accused can be tried on such charges, which are offences against the law, and in serious cases of cruelty the severest sentences should be imposed.

Inspectors. You should divide your province into two approximately equal districts, and hold each Inspector responsible for the exact execution of all Orders and Regulations in the district allotted to them. Duties of Inspectors.-The Inspector is the Mudir's Staff Officer in charge of the district to which he is appointed by the Mudir. He will be responsible for the execution and enforcement in his district of all Orders and Regulations that are issued for the administration of the province, and for the smartness and discipline of the police.

He will be careful to strictly carry out the law as laid down, and make the Court over which he presides respected, and to see that the Mamurs in his district give proper punishments according to their powers.

It will be one of his most important duties to supervise the operations of the police and to see that they thoroughly investigate all criminal cases, and are employed in such a manner as to insure the maintenance of public security.

He will not be a channel of communication between Mamurs and the Mudirieh, that is, Mamurs will forward direct to the