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PREFACE
AS explained in the Preface to the first volume of this series, it had been decided that an account of tlie affairs of tlie Islamic World which, owing to pressure of space, was omitted from that volume, atul from the Suwey for 1924, should be given in the Snwey for 1925. It was, moreover, considered that it would be better to deal with the history of the different Islamic countries as one connected subject, and not in separate instalments. One of the reasons for this was that it was necessary to incorporate a preliminary account of the development which had taken place in the years immediately following the War, which was all the more essential because in the Islamic World much had happened which did not fall within the scope of The History of the Peace Conference.
It was soon discovered, however, that the amount of material to be dealt with was so great that it could not be treated adequately as a single section in a volume of five hundred pages. It was therefore decided by the Committee, after consultation with Professor Toynbee, that, as an exceptional measure, the volume for 1925 should be brought out in two parts, of which the first would be entirely devoted to the affairs of the Islamic World. Subscribers who may be inclined to feel some dissatisfaction at being asked to purchase two volumes instead of one in a single year are invited to consider, firstly, the paramount importance of the subject, for which it seems essential that a full and adequate treatment should be provided, and secondly, the fact that this survey of Islamic affairs is really supplementary not to one volume only, but to three, since it deals with events occurring in the period covered by the Surveys previously published, as well as in 1925.
This volume is the first part of the Survey for 1925. The second part, which it is hoped will be .published in the summer of 1927, will deal with the outstanding events of 1925 in other fields. The subjects will include in particular the questions of Security and Disarmament (the events leading up to the Locarno agreements and the agreements themselves) and the international relations of the American Continent (no account of which has hitherto been given). There will also be a full account of the important events which took place in the Far East and the Pacific from the close of the Washington Conference to the end of 1925.
Owing to the great amount of work required in the writing of this first part. Professor Toynbee found himself unable to write the second part. This has therefore been entrusted to other writers.
G. M. Gathorne-Hakdy,
Honorary Secretary,
Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Survey for 1925: Volume I
Addenda and Corrigenda to Pari III, Section (ii)
Thk folloM ing important ohservatioiiH on this section have been received, since publication, from a member of the Iiistitiite who is partaeiilarly well qualified to make them:
Pages 233- 4: Islamic culture was still dominant in the Northern Sudan, after more than a quart ei' of a century of a partly British regime, not ‘ in spite of ’ that regime but in large measure owing to the deliberate policy of the Sudanese Government e.g. in the education given to the sons of Sudanese notables at Gordoii College.
Page 240: It should have been added that there was a large and important contingi nt of Syrian as well as Egyptian officials in the middle ranks of the Sudan Civil Service.
Page 243: In a comparison between the respective economic interests of Egypt and Great Britain in Uie Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, it should have been added that Lancashire was looking to the Sudan to make up the suplay of long staple cotton—a vital necessity for the Lancashire cotton industry which was in danger of running short owing to the progressive diminution in the yield per faddan in Egypt. This toll taken by politics from eonomics in Egypt was estimated at a minimum of 33 per cent, of the previous production.
While giving full weight to this consideration, the writer of the Surrey ventures to point out again that the vital Egyptian interest in the Sudan was the supply of Nile water for irrigation in Egypt, and that, since the wliole of this supply had to pass through Sudanese territory in order to reach Egy[)t, this question touched th(^ entire life of Egypt and not simply one out of several basic industries of the country. In other words, tilt* interest of Egypt in the Sudan was comparable to the interest of Great Britain in the sea rather than to the interest of Great Britain in the Lancashire cotton industry.
Page 243: Jt should have been added that the economic development of the Northern Sudan was desirable, not only in the interests of the Lancashire cotton industry, but in those of the Sudan itself. The population of the Northern Sudan had been perpetually threatened with a deficit in the means of subsistence, and the traditional response to such a deficit had been an outbreak of Mahdism. In the Jazirah, w^here the irrigation scheme was inaugurated, there had been an outbreak as recently as …
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