Solution in the Sudan

"Unity of the Nile Valley"--joining the Sudan to Egypt--has been the Egyptian version of "Remember the Maine" and "Fifty-four Forty or Fight." For half a century, no clever Egyptian politician would be caught in the open before a crowd without echoing this familiar vote-catching cry. One day last week, Egypt's strong man of three months, General Mohammed Naguib, who likes to call himself a simple soldier, scratched pen on paper, and the issue and the cry vanished. Instead of insisting on sole control of the Sudan, Naguib agreed to let the Sudanese themselves, operating under a new constitution, decide their own political future.

This surprising accord was hammered out in eight days of talks in Cairo with white-bearded, wealthy Sir Abdel Rahman El Mahdi of Sudan.* They agreed that the Sudanese should elect a legislative assembly by year's end, and thereafter practice full home rule under the supervision of the British governor general. Then, within three years, by Dec. 31, 1955 at the latest, the 8,000,000 Sudanese are to vote again on whether they want to remain independent or join Egypt.

This agreement is remarkably like one Britain has long been trying to sell--over stout Egyptian opposition. The most important differences: 1) the British governor general would now be hemmed in by advisers; 2) before the second vote is taken, all British forces are to be withdrawn from the Sudan and the civil services are to be "Sudanized"; 3) the plebiscite, to be administered by an international commission, is to restrict the choices to two--complete independence or union with Egypt. There would be no opportunity to choose dominion status within the British Commonwealth.

Nonetheless, in London last week, the Foreign Office was chirpy with pleasure, a sensation its African department had almost forgotten how to feel. The British have long insisted that they are prepared to get out of the Sudan as long as the Sudanese are left to themselves (and presumably advised discreetly by the British). Even better would be an agreement whereby the Egyptians, Sudanese and British could be friends again in the vulnerable, volatile Middle East. Said the Manchester Guardian: "We should be ready to take the rough with the smooth if we can secure a tolerable way out of what seemed a little time ago to be an impasse." Said the Economist: "For the first time for very many years an Egyptian statesman has publicly given Great Britain the benefit of the doubt."

*And son of the famed Mahdi whose forces seized Khartoum in 1885, and were finally routed by Kitchener.

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