EGYPT: Death Shortens a Speech

“My Speech from theThrone,”confided Egypt’s Premier Hassan Sabry Pasha to his friends one day last week, “will be the shortest ever made by an Egyptian Premier.”

Sabry Pasha’s friends were worried about him. As always he was working too hard. The unrelaxing, hobbyless Premier began his day at 8 every morning and worked late into the night. Ever since last June, when Italy entered the war and King Farouk asked Sabry Pasha to form a coalition Cabinet, he had been worried by internal dissension. To begin with, the anti-British Wafdists accused him of pandering to London. The British, also displeased, said he was the King’s pawn, and that the King was lukewarm on the war. Then when Italy invaded Egypt, extreme Wafdists accused him of forgetting his words of last August: “Egypt will declare war if her territory or her Army is the object of an attack.” Never overly popular except with the King, Sabry Pasha by last week was the focus of some pretty strong hates.

The day after his confidence about the Speech from the Throne, the Premier answered a summons to the Palace. There the young King hung about his neck the Grand Cordon of Mohammed Ali—highest honor Egypt can bestow. Proudly Sabry Pasha proceeded to the Chamber of Deputies to deliver his King’s short speech. The Chamber was packed, and brilliantly. In the visitors’ section sat beautiful Queen Farida, demure in a white veil; the jeweled wives of Egypt’s aristocrats; diplomats in all their brocade; generals in all their braid. The King sat a few feet from the rostrum.

Sabry Pasha began reading, firmly and clearly: “. . . Alliance with Great Britain . . . friendship with all nations except Britain’s enemies . . . Britain spared Egypt many hardships. …” Suddenly his voice faltered, then died away. He stood swaying for a moment, making a pathetic fluttering movement with his hands toward the President of the Senate. He crumpled to the floor.

Egypt’s foremost surgeon, Minister of Health Ali Ibrahim Pasha, hurried forward, shooed away nervous, crowding no tables, examined the prostrate body. He whispered a word to the King, into whose eyes tears sprang. Hassan Sabry Pasha’s speech was indeed the shortest a Premier had ever delivered. He was dead.