OCR
intelligent, has great personal courage and a very strong will. The world hears of his night-life; ütut it never leams of the fact, that Farouk works an average of nine to ten hours daily on public affairs, that he has his own personal infomation ser= vice, reads many papers and remembers almost everything he has read. His great wealmess it seems to this observer is his abso~ lute lack of social sense, He just does not realize the social situation and the erying need for radical reforms, He rather follows a policy to change as little as possible and only to ace. cept reforms af it is absolutely impossible to do otherwise. He likes to quote the faitous saying : Reforms - it is always good to speak of them ; never to make them. But it must be understood that Egyptwould be today Communist ir Amnarchist where it not for Farouk. And that the King is the only safeguard the West has to find Egypt at his side in the decisive moments. . — Tha Wafd is stili the most powerful force with the people, despite the fact, that it has failed miserably. This is not due so much to its programme, but to the personal prestige of Nahas Pasha. The old man is still trusted by the illiterate and the lower classes. His past as a hero of the fight for freedom carries him, Whenever people are appraised of the terrible shortcomings of Wafd their typical reaction will be : poor Nahas, how much he is betrayed in his ideals by Serag ed Dine and other wicked men, who hide behind his high virtues, People simply refuse to take cognizence of facts. This prestige is such, that even Farouk does not dare to tackle Nahas directly. He does not even dare to attack the Wafd graft directly, despite the fact, . that Hilaly knows everything. The law, pressed for by Farouk, demanding of everyone in public life to make a public accounting of his wealth and income, is not applied, since Farouk and Hilaly fear that in the case of the application they would have to indict people who are to powerful with the people. The coming elections will be thus very risky, especially. since at least so far Hilaly demands that they be honest, This is because Hilaly is a convinced and honest liberal. But honest elections would lead to grave chaos. Hence powerful influences with the crown demand that these elections be indefinitely post~ . poned or conducted in a fashion which would prevent the Wafd from regaining a majority. : The present Royal dictatorship is only accepted with such relative quietness because the great majority of the country was deeply shocked by the happenings in Cairo on the days of the riots, These riots where not the making of the people. And the true facts of the matter have practically never heen told. The riots where the fact of the Communists. They where 44.