was instituted against the Government before the Court of Cairo, in the name of the Caisse. Advantage was taken of various technical objections to delay the hearing of the case till after the summer vacation; and before the Courts had reassembled all had changed. At the crisis of Ismail's fortunes, the Government of Germany dealt him a death-blow by announcing that it must insist upon the judgments of the International Tribunals being carried into execution. This action on the part of Germany overcame the hesitation of France and England; Ismail was deposed and Tewfik reigned in his stead. One of the earliest acts of the new government was to rescind the decree reducing the interest on the debt. With that the matter ended.

Since this incident little has been heard till recently of the 'Caisse de la Dette.' Under the Dual Control and under the English protectorate it has formed a sort of fifth wheel to the administrative coach. As a matter of fact four very respectable but not very eminent gentlemen have drawn large salaries from the Egyptian Treasury for clerical work which might have been done as efficiently and far more cheaply by a professional accountant. Indeed, in various schemes which have been contemplated for the creation of a State Bank in Egypt, an institution most urgently required, it has always been taken for granted that the bank when established would take over the duties of the Caisse. If, however, the convention with France should be carried out, the Caisse, instead of dying a natural death, will become the most important and influential institution in the country. Everything in Egypt turns upon finance; and whoever controls the finances is the virtual ruler of the Nile land. We may safely assume that the attributes of the Multiple Control will be so arranged as to give the Egyptian Government apparent freedom of disposal over the funds not required for the payment of the debt. But no matter what provisions may be made in theory, the Board of Control will in fact have the last word in all questions affecting the finances of Egypt; and every single measure of the administration necessarily touches upon questions of finance. Now, as I have shown above, the Caisse have always considered themselves as the legal representatives of the creditors of Egypt. Their first duty, as they hold, and with truth, is to the creditors. In one sense the interests of the creditors and the country are identical, and therefore the Caisse as the trustees of the bondholders may desire to promote the welfare of Egypt in as far as it coincides with that of the creditors. But when these two interests come into collision it is the bounden duty of the Caisse to uphold the latter as against the former. This is the traditional view of the Caisse. Indeed, no other view is compatible with their position, their origin, and the terms of their trust.

What our Government proposes therefore to do is to hand over

the administration of Egypt to an International Syndicate of official assignees. No arrangement could be suggested more onerous to Egypt, more fatal to her internal development, more opposed to the true interests of the country. Nor is the arrangement one calculated to promote the interests of England in Egypt. All experience has shown that in every one of the various international Boards by which Egypt is and has been administered, the English element occupies a subordinate position. It would take too long to inquire now into the causes of the invariable failure of English officials in Egypt to hold their own as against their foreign and especially their French colleagues. It is enough to say that the failure is due to general and permanent, not to accidental and personal, causes; and the same influences which have placed us at a disadvantage in the mixed administrations of the Railways, the Daira, the Domains, and the Caisse, must continue to operate when the Caisse is transformed into a Board of Control. Practically the Caisse is a French institution. Its staff, its official language, its system of procedure, its rules and traditions, are French or based upon French models. It may be said that other Continental Powers besides France will have seats on the Board, and that there is no reason why these Powers should not side with England rather than with France. In theory this is true, in practice it is untrue. Our ways, our ideas, our habits of thought are not as those of the Continental nations; and in a mixed board the majority, even if not well disposed towards France, will always be antagonistic to England. The Panglosses of politics who believe in the European Concert, and pin their faith to the consensus of international opinion, are oblivious of the plain hard fact that, however the Continental nations may disagree amongst themselves, they are unanimous in their dislike, distrust, and jealousy of England.

It is stated that during the remaining period of our military occupation certain restrictions will be placed upon the liberty of action enjoyed by the Multiple Control. Restrictions there must be, as even Mr. Gladstone, with all his blind desire to get rid of Egypt, can hardly propose that English troops are to be employed at the order of a foreign Board to enforce measures of administration which are distasteful to English ideas of policy, and right, and justice. But these restrictions cannot touch the root of the matter. Henceforward, if England consents to ratify the convention, the International Board will represent the dominant authority in Egypt. From this fact certain consequences must follow. In accordance with the suggestions of Lord Dufferin's report, we have undertaken to reform and reorganise the whole administrative, political, and judicial system of Egypt. For this purpose we have placed a number of English officials in every department of the Egyptian public service, who have endeavoured more or less successfully to reform abuses and introduce sound principles of government. Whether the attempt

was a wise one in itself, or whether it has been set about in the right way, it is foreign to my present purpose to consider. I am dealing with the situation as it exists. Now, the first and the inevitable result of the establishment of a Multiple Control will be to deprive our English officials of any opportunity of prosecuting their work, and to knock on the head all notion of the regeneration of Egypt. To reform abuses, to prevent injustice, to remove inequalities, to develop resources, may prove in the long run beneficial to the material, as well as the moral, interests of Egypt; but at the outset, every attempt to put what is crooked straight involves immediate increase of expenditure and loss of income. Against this the Commissioners of the Caisse will set their face. The English officials will be either dismissed on the plea of economy, or will be thwarted in every effort to do their duty till they are driven to resign. Their place, if we may judge by the past, will be filled by a swarm of French employés, who, whatever else they may do, will certainly make no attempt to reform the Egyptian administration or to raise the status of the Egyptian people. It may probably be alleged that under the new system the native government will possess greater independence than it does at present, and will be at full liberty to continue the work of reform, and to retain the services of all officials, English or otherwise, who have done good service in prosecuting this work. The answer to this assertion is, that with very few and rare exceptions the whole of the governing class in Egypt has nothing more at heart than to cut short the process of reorganisation and to make a clean sweep of all officials who, like the English public servants, are labouring to establish a new and better system. The very few natives-such as Nubar and to some extent Tewfik-who realise the advantages of reform will be utterly powerless, as soon as English support is removed, against the dead weight of the class interests, popular prejudices, and personal influences which stand in the way of any effective reorganisation. Practically the whole authority of the native government will be exerted to support the Controllers in their opposition to any reform which must cost money and involve interference with vested interests. The Dual Control was, by the nature of its constitution as well as by the personal character of the Controllers, a far more active and energetic body than the Multiple Control can ever be. Under its rule the taxes were well collected, the revenue was prosperous, and the creditors were content. Yet, with all their power and authority, the Controllers did nothing during their two years' tenure of office to improve the condition of the people, to reform abuses, or to develop the resources of the country. It was not good will that was wanting, but lack of power. What M. de Blignières, and Sir Evelyn Baring, and Sir Auckland Colvin failed to do, it is idle to imagine that the Caisse de la Dette will accomplish. To sum up, the establishment of the Multiple Control

means the return of all the old abuses and evils we have endeavoured, however unsuccessfully, to eradicate, the restoration of a condition. of affairs under which it may be truly said that the last state of Egypt will be worse than the first.

If it were possible to make this solution more hurtful to Egypt and more damaging to England than it is already, this result would be achieved by the agreement that the English occupation is to last for some three years longer and then terminate. After all, however bad a system may be, things settle themselves one way or another, if it is regarded as permanent. But the result of Mr. Gladstone's perverted ingenuity has been to prolong for three years more the condition of uncertainty which has already brought Egypt to the very verge of ruin. The British Government is not pledged even to retain its troops in Egypt for three years certain. On the other hand its hands are tied against prolonging its occupation beyond that period. Thus the net result must be that for three years more Egypt will remain in suspense as to the ultimate disposal of her destiny. It will be impossible to say with any certainty whether the English troops are to stop or leave, and, in the latter case, whether the Khedive's Government or the Multiple Control will be in a position to hold its own. Thus everything will remain unsettled, everybody will be afraid to identify his fortunes with an order of things which may be upset at any moment, and the whole efforts of the native and foreign authorities will necessarily be devoted, not to doing the work of administration or to setting things straight, but to looking out for support and assistance in the near future, when the English occupation is to come to a close. Human ingenuity could not have devised a state of things more hurtful to Egypt than this triennial provisorium.

Of course the real reason for this ill-defined prolongation of our occupation-after all necessity for it has ceased, supposing we are ultimately to abandon Egypt to the mercies of a Multiple Control-is obvious enough. Our troops are retained in Egypt because the country is threatened with an invasion, which we are bound to repel. Even if we are prepared to abandon Gordon, we cannot, with common decency and self-respect, abandon Egypt to the Mahdi. Our hearts, or at any rate the hearts of our Ministers, may be ready for a capitulation even more disgraceful than that by which we relieved ourselves for a time of the Transvaal difficulty. But, happily, we cannot run away from the valley of the Nile as we did from Majuba Hill. In all human likelihood, the fall of Khartoum, which cannot long be delayed, will be followed by the advance of the Mahdi's forces upon Upper Egypt. Before the year is over, we may thus be called upon to undertake a very serious and arduous campaign. Berber has fallen, Dongola is threatened, and if once Khartoum, where Gordon still leads a forlorn hope, should be taken, the victorious Arab tribes could pour down on

Egypt not only by the valley of the Nile, but across the eastern and western deserts which encircle Egypt. Now I, for one, believe that the power of the Mahdi, or rather of any such movement as that of which he is the reputed leader, has been and is enormously exaggerated by popular ignorance of the true conditions of Islam and of the Eastern world. A year ago we could have suppressed the Soudan insurrection by a very small display of our military power. Even now, the despatch of a British force to Khartoum would probably end the difficulty. But if we wait till the Mahdi's armies, intoxicated with success and eager for plunder, swoop down upon the rich lands of Egypt, we may have to put forth our real fighting strength. We saw at Tamanieb and El Teb how fearlessly and recklessly these Arab troops can risk their lives; and many a hard battle may have to be fought and won before the invasion is driven back to the desert. Driven back it will be, for England has not yet lost the courage to fight, though under her present policy she may have lost the courage to rule. But no patriotic man, I might almost say no honest man, can contemplate without repugnance if not abhorrence the prospect of such a campaign as that to which we stand committed. What, in the name of common sense, are our troops to fight for in the valley of the Nile, if we are to surrender all the vantage-ground we have gained there for England? That British armies should have to endure the sufferings of a desert campaign, that British soldiers should be sent to die by hundreds, that the whole odium of killing thousands of Arabs -with whom we have no cause of quarrel, if we are not the recognised . protectors of Egypt-should fall upon England, is a rank absurdity and anomaly. England, to speak the plain truth, is to fight the battle of Europe at her own cost and risk and sacrifice, in order to strengthen the authority of the Multiple Control and to facilitate the neutralisation of Egypt by which she is to be debarred for ever from the power of protecting for herself her own rights and her own interests. It is bad enough to have to fight at all; worse still to have to fight without prospect of reward or gain. But to have to fight for the sake of securing our own discomfiture and loss is the very climax of extra

vagance.

We come back then once more to the question with which I started: Can the country rightly or prudently adopt the Ministerial solution of the Egyptian difficulty? I for one can only answer that question in the negative. I recognise fully all the difficulties attending the rejection by Parliament of an understanding with foreign Powers, and especially with France, to which the Government stands committed. But I can see no possibility that any modification of details can render the arrangement in question anything but a practical surrender of our position in Egypt. To surrender that position is to my mind to imperil, if not to sacrifice, the vital interests