SUEZ: The British Leave

Originally, the British opposed building the Suez Canal, but six years after it opened, it took the British just seven days to buy up the biggest financial share. A few years later, to safeguard their investment, they took complete military control of the canal zone, promising to get out again in six years, once things had quieted down. That was 72 years ago.

Last week, in the graceful, columned Pharaonic hall of the Egyptian Parliament, the British finally agreed, once and for all, to leave. Britain's 34-year-old Minister of State Anthony Nutting signed the agreement with Egypt's equally young, 36-year-old strongman, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser. The 80,000 British troops are to begin embarking immediately from the Suez Canal Zone. By June 18, 1956—20 months from now—Egypt will be free of uniformed Britons for the first time in nearly three-quarters of a century, and master in its own house for the first time in 400 years. (Britain may, however, reoccupy the base within the next seven years in case of attack on any Arab League state or on Turkey, and British technicians will maintain essential instal lations during that time.)

From London, Sir Anthony Eden cabled: "I am delighted." Colonel Nasser, in triumph, was more sober. "Another struggle is beginning," he said. "We must not be intoxicated." His government, no longer able to divert attention from its troubles by blaming everything on the British, must now get down to Egypt's age-old unsolved problems—overpopulation, disease, illiteracy, poverty.