Pomp of Impotence

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

Half a million golden pounds ($2,433,000) were spent to provide, last week in London, a welcome for Ahmed Fuad I, King of Egypt.

His Majesty crossed the Channel from France in a British warship, escorted by five destroyers and five airplanes. Edward of Wales met him at Dover, and they traveled swiftly by special train to Victoria Station, London. There the King-Emperor and Premier Stanley Baldwin waited.

Few noticed that Premier Sarwat Pasha of Egypt stepped from the train only to slip off in the company of Foreign Minister Sir Austen Chamberlain. Theirs was the meeting of real importance.

Meanwhile the rich standards of the Grenadier Guards dipped and swept the ground in salute. Soon the Household Cavalry moved off at a smart trot. Through a lane between applauding hands passed two sovereigns who have little in common except that they both collect stamps.*

As the procession moved along, bands blared the Egyptian National Anthem, and hundreds of Britons suddenly caught themselves humming the snatch of an old song:

Said the Old Obadiah

To the Young Obadiah,

"I am dry, Obadiah,

"I am dry!"

Said the Young Obadiah To the Old Obadiah,

"So am I, Obadiah,

"So am I!"

The hummers hummed not wantonly, not scurrilously, but with excellent reason. Sixty years ago Obadiah was the rage in London when that Capital was visited by King Faud's father, the late Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha.

Upon returning to Egypt the Khedive summoned a great composer, Verdi. "I wish you to write music for a national anthem," said Ismail. "Like this! Listen. I shall whistle."

The great Verdi listened. The Khedive whistled Obadiah. Soon the Egyptian National Anthem was composed.

On to Buckingham Palace whirled the twice royal cavalcade. Portly Ahmed Fuad was soon shown into a suite in what is technically known as "Wing V." There the Egyptian Great Chamberlain marshalled Ahmed Fuad's numerous attendants--not the least of these being a chemist to test his food, a taster to sample it, and two of George V's physicians skilled in antidotes.

When the dinner was served, the Britannic lackeys were able to set before King Fuad a very fair example of his favorite etree, tender, luscious little steaks of horse flesh.

For three days Fuad I was the guest of George V who entertained him in a manner altogether sumptuous, even distributing in his guest's honor -L-1,000 to the London poor.

Then King Fuad brought his State Visit to a close, moved to the Egyptian Embassy. There he so outdid British royalty in splendor that the Egyptian correspondents were able to send very flattering despatches home to Alexandria and Cairo. This accorded perfectly with that British policy which soothingly recognizes Egypt as an independent kingdom, yet sternly employs British gunboats on the most trivial provocation to keep Egypt in vassalage (TIME, Aug. 25, Oct. 6, 1924).

To the Egyptian Embassy purred automobiles containing George V, Edward of Wales, the Duke of York, Prince Henry, the British Cabinet and a very few peers who brought the total up to exactly 50 persons, all men.

They strolled through huge, sumptuous rooms, perfumed with the heavy scent of hundreds of orchids, overlaid with deep, priceless rugs, hung with silken tapestries, set with rich furniture--one piece a piano of gold, studded with gems. All had been assembled for this single State Visit.

The guests sat down at a great horseshoe table, the Emperor on the King's right hand. No ladies, no wine--Mohammedan custom forbado. Huge Numidians, each six feet tall and more, served the Egyptian food on plates of gold.

The Monarchs, majestic and aloof, were pretended by a scurrilous press to have talked through one course about postage stamps. This gossip Egyptian and British patriots spurned.

As the State Visit lumbered through pompous display last week, what was the subject of so many quiet conversations at the dim, high-ceilinged Foreign Office between Premier Sarwat Pasha and Sir Austen Chamberlain?

They were believed to have spoken chiefly of the Sudan. This, the great headwaterland of Egypt, is so thoroughly under British dominance and exploitation that its annexation by the British Empire is not believed permanently remote.

Meanwhile there exist numberless pinpricks of conflict between the British High Commissioner to Egypt, Baron George Ambrose Lloyd, and the nominally independent Egyption Government. Since Sarwat knows well enough that he is Premier by the grace of the British Foreign Office, his conversations with Sir Austen were tinged deep with a wholesome respect.

*Ahmed Fuad I possesses about $1,000,000 worth of stamps from all countries, and was the first big collector to buy up U. S. Civil War stamps before they began to boom in value.

George V has a collection principally of British stamps valued at $2,000,000. During the War he gave up collecting for a time "on account of the expense," but soon began again "for the distraction was thought necessary amid the stress of War time."