It is no easy matter to estimate the character of Arabi Pasha. He seems, from even so friendly an account as that of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, not to have been particularly intelligent or particularly brave. It appears likely that he, at least, connived at the burning and loot of Alexandria. All this, however, would not have prevented his being a true patriot according to his lights. As Mr. Herbert Paul observes: "How far Arabi was a mutinous soldier guided by personal {196} ambition and how far he was an enthusiastic patriot burning to free his country from a foreign yoke, would admit of an easier answer if one alternative excluded the other."[4] One thing, however, is certain. The movement he led was far more than the merely military revolt which Mr. Gladstone and everyone in England at first thought it; it was in fact a genuine Nationalist movement directed rather against the alien Turk than against the alien Englishman. That the truth of this is now generally admitted is principally due to Mr. Blunt and in a lesser degree to Mr. Labouchere and the group of extreme Radicals of which he was already beginning to be the unofficial leader in Parliament. During the spring and summer of 1882, Mr. Labouchere's first observations in the House of Commons on Egyptian affairs were of a thoroughly orthodox nature. On May 12 we find him asking the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Sir Charles Dilke) "whether any steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government in view of the critical state of affairs in Egypt to maintain our influence in that country."[5] On July 27 he replies in a vein at once serious and sarcastic to Mr. McCarthy, who had made a speech in Arabi's favour. He thought that Mr. McCarthy had drawn on his imagination for the character of Arabi Pasha. They knew perfectly well that the most eminent men in the world were frequently great patriots; and they also knew that military adventurers always called themselves patriots in order to advance their own ends. They knew little of the career of Arabi Pasha, but they did know that he had designedly massacred Europeans in Alexandria, and had deliberately burnt down one of the noblest cities of his native land. What would be the effect of the vote[6] they proposed to give if it were successful? The English nation would have to withdraw entirely from their present position in Egypt, and the result would be that {197} we should have behaved in a contemptible manner in the face of Europe. India would not be worth one year's purchase. He was not a great believer in prestige; but if we were to retire after our men had been massacred our Empire in the East would not be worth a year's purchase. This speech, occupying eight columns of _Hansard_, aims at cutting away the relations between England and Turkey (which shows that even at so early a date Mr. Labouchere realised something of the true nature of the grievance of the Egyptian Nationalists) and