According to latest dispatches the dove of peace hovers once more above the Nile. The Egyptian bomb had been set and timed to blow up the vestiges of English power. After much smoke and a few sparks, it exploded with a resounding "Piff!", and instead of the British lion, Zagloul Pasha heads the casualty list.

The Egyptian "crisis" was the mere symptom of a widespread disorder. Self-determination, so loudly proclaimed from the Hall of Mirrors in 1919, now passes current, quite contrary to intent, in Egypt, in India, in Morocco, and in the Philippines. Even China demands that a people's right to wage civil war in its own way--in fair weather, with Sundays and holidays off--shall not be denied because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

So illogical is the native mind, that it prefers misgovernment of home manufacture to good government of foreign brand. Every honest observer admits that English organization did wonders for Egypt and that two years of Egyptian independence have performed greater marvels in restoring the chaos of the seventies. Now that Egypt has surrendered to the British demands, both London and Paris newspapers predict a restoration of the protectorate. To haunt the British mind anew, the ghost of Cecil Rhodes has been seen in Downing Street with the Cape-to-Cairo project under its arm.

Nationalists in other quarters may well take Egypt as an object lesson. The gentle hint has been given that the idealism endorsed at Versailles, like that of Alexander I at Vienna, must not be taken too literally. England's will is her way.