Our expedition, as was to be anticipated, has proved successful. Our troops hold Egypt. What then ought we to do? Obviously to hand it over to the Notables, who are the representatives of the Egyptian people, and to inform these Notables that we have no intention of repeating our previous error, but that, experience having shown us the fatal results of allowing ourselves little by little to be dragged into an attempt to manage other people's finances with a view to public creditors being paid interest, we shall leave Egypt and Egypt's creditors to settle their conflicting interests as they best please. This is the logical consequence of our having acted upon the assumption that Arabi was terrorising the Egyptians.... It is evident to me, therefore, that the only policy which an English Liberal Ministry can adopt is to go before Europe with a proposal to make Egypt an Eastern Belgium, and to base our suggestion upon our own renunciation of interference in its internal affairs. I hear it said that the Liberal party is popular owing to its successes in Egypt. It may, perhaps, be for the nonce popular--or, to put it more correctly, not quite so unpopular--as it was with Jingoes, but these same Jingoes will not cease to vote for Conservatives.... {204} How then about the Canal? Well, I should base my policy upon that pursued in like cases by the United States. I should explain to Europe that the Canal is the connecting link between Great Britain and India, and that consequently the exigencies of geography and an enlightened self-interest render it absolutely necessary for us to be paramount there. There might be a little grumbling, but no one would go to war to hinder this, because its plain common-sense would be too obvious.[10] In the meantime Arabi was lying in prison at Cairo awaiting his trial, and Mr. Labouchere took up his case energetically in the House of Commons. A military tribunal was to be charged with the trial, and it was no secret that the Khedive was determined that the death penalty should be inflicted on the heads of the rebellion. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt wrote, on September 1, a long letter to Mr. Gladstone, stating his intention of providing Arabi with an English counsel at his own expense and that of his friends, and hoping that "every facility will be afforded me and those with me in Egypt to prosecute our task." Mr. Gladstone, who was deeply hostile to Arabi, replied through his secretary, that "all that he can say at the present moment is that he will bring your request before Lord Granville, with whom he will consult, but that he cannot hold out any assurance that it will be complied with."