it to that to-morrow' on which Egyptian officials trust, and the last state of the army became worse than the first. It was seen at a glance that there was no administrative machinery for the army at all, that between the Khedive as head and the army as the body there was no connecting neck. The small knot of competent officers of the Etat Major, headed by General Stone Pasha, who might have served the purpose, were ignored by both sides, and the Viceroy was left face to face with the rank and file of his army, led by the officers whose sole raison d'être was to defend him from such conditions.

When conflicts arise in despotic communities between authority and force, the side which shows most decision and most personal courage is the side that wins. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that had the offer made by certain officers of the Egyptian army last February, to compel the mutinous regiments to lay down their arms, been accepted, there would have been no interruption in that onward march to prosperity which Egypt has since had to suffer. The same result would almost certainly have been achieved, and that without bloodshed, had the Viceroy seen fit, as supreme, to take visible command of the troops at the same time that he retained his prisoners. But, to use the words of an English statesman in a recent conversation with the writer, the Khedive is not alone in his unwillingness to face popular effervescence. The absence of personal courage at particular moments may influence the whole turn of affairs; yet as the world grows older and more democratic, it certainly does not become more courageous.'

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However that may be, this is absolutely true, that when it is a question of concessions wrung from Government, the appetite of the concessionaries grows by feeding. The principle of authority and of discipline having been subverted in February, the émeute in September was only a natural and direct consequence. This is not the time nor the occasion for speculating on the immediate springs which developed this particular manifestation of a disquiet spirit. It is probable that no one of the many causes assigned by those who profess to have connaissance de cause was the true motor, and that the manifestation was the result of several influences, very far from being identical in their interests. Mohammed Ali would have answered the demand of his troops in his own peculiar way, which the Mamelukes knew. Mohammed Ali's great-grandson, brought up in a far different atmosphere, and environed by political surroundings to which his ancestor was a stranger, met the demands of the regiments by turning his unstricken cheek to the smiter.

It may be matter for curious speculation, but it can serve Lo practical purpose, to consider what might have happened if, in February or even in September, the Khedive had outflanked the colonels by placing himself, in his quality of Effendina, at the head of the troops, yet trembling at the possible consequences of their

audacity; or if, taking the opposite line, he had imitated the example of Cromwell when a sergeant, in the name of the army, constituted himself the mouthpiece of their grievances and lost his life to the general's own pistol. It is probable that in either case no more would have been heard for a lifetime of insubordination in the Egyptian army. But the fact is that neither course was adopted. What it behoves those who are interested in Egypt to do in face of the results of the émeute is evidently a question which admits of many interpretations. Peculiar necessity is upon the writer to abstain from setting forth any opinions he may have formed on this point. Engaged in the actual work of internal administration in Egypt, it is obviously necessary not to commit himself to any position which might be even liable to misconstruction. The only suggestion he will permit himself to throw out is the employment of Mussulman, Bengali troops in the smallest possible number consistent with securing the immunity of the Khedive from personal insult and danger, in the event of its being found necessary to introduce force from outside.

The employment of such troops would in itself be as legitimate as it was in Persia; it would be free from the objections to which European troops would be liable on the score of religion and mode of life; and it would be the form of protection least likely to arouse susceptibilities on the part of Egyptian authority, and of the people subordinate to it.

The more direct purpose of this article is, however, rather to examine the administrative machinery of the Egyptian Government than to discuss its politics. If we come to examine the organisation of the War Office, we shall perhaps find some traces of the reason which has made the army so ready an instrument in the hands of wire-pullers. Food, clothing, and pay, in reasonable proportions, are the three essentials to the domestic life of the soldier. Yet it was not till some time after the present Khedive had been on the throne, that the pay of the army was distributed at anything near the due date. It is only two years and a half since the officers' remonstrance, which brought about the fall of Nubar Pasha's Ministry, revealed also the fact that the pay of the army was in arrear, twelve, twenty, and in one case thirty, months. Regularity in the time of paying has been established long since the mutinous spirit was first manifested, and the tradition of times passed without pay does not easily fade. Even it is kept fresh in the memory by the recollection that augmented pay was the sequel of further mutinous conduct. In the article of clothing it is likely the Government, or rather the country, have more cause to complain than the troops, who appear fairly clothed, though under conditions which require the closest scrutiny. In the matter of food, both for man and horse, there is ample ground for complaint on both sides. The

men have to eat food inferior in quality to that ostensibly stipulated for by the Government, and both in the price and in the quantities delivered frauds are committed which tell upon the actual consumer and upon the Treasury alike. Lest this should be deemed random speaking, let one instance be cited which came under the official cognisance of the writer. The War Department advertised for rice, barley, and beans required for the use of the troops. The Council of the State Domaines, having these articles to sell, wrote to the President of the Council of Ministers, suggesting that the Government might profit if the Domaines tendered for the supply, and consenting beforehand to do so if certain details as to the amount of deliveries could be arranged. The President of the Council, in communication with his colleague at the War Office, consented, and on the day of tender a trustworthy person was sent from the Domaines to the War Office with authority to offer for each article at a price which would have paid so small a profit as to make it unremunerative to a speculator, or one who had to pay 'baksheesh.' An offer of twenty pounds, if he would only go about his business, was made to the Domaines employé as soon as the usual providers knew his errand, and when even more tempting offers were refused, a proposal was made to buy the whole quantity of food and forage from the Domaines at its own price, on condition of withdrawal from competition. This seduction proving also vain, the ring' set to work to underbid, and obtained the contract at prices which made honest dealing on their part out of the question-nay, they boasted that they would recoup themselves in the quality and in the weight of their deliveries, while at the same time they drove their powerful competitor out of the field. In the last resolve they certainly succeeded, and it is hardly doubtful that they did also in the others. Another time they can make the price what they like, and increase the hush-money which is the necessary adjunct of such business. There is neither the power nor the wish in the War Office to have it otherwise.

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Public Works and the Ministry of the Interior have doubtless improved during the last three years. Yet who that has had to work with them, and the success of whose own work depended to some extent upon their co-operation, but has had cause to weep at the fantastic tricks these agencies have played? A province is threatened, more than threatened, with scarcity of water; warning letters are written to the Ministry, based upon the circumstantial reports of the resident engineers on the spot, and supplemented by personal inspection by the writer of the letter. Promises to do specific things within a stated time are made, even in writing. Personal visits, following upon non-fulfilment of promises, are made the subject of immediate and urgent telegrams from the Minister to phantoms in the country. Still no result; the time runs on; the crops languish; the Commissioners appeal to the President of the Council; and the Khedive himself,

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getting to hear of the matter, telegraphs to the governor of the province, and also at the same time to the resident bailiff, for information. Is there water in the canals of Mehallet el Kebir?' asks the telegram. Not even to drink,' replies the bailiff. "There is water in abundance,' says the governor. The one, for sake of the epigrammatic character of his answer, exaggerates a fact within his own daily knowledge; the other, deriving his information from negligent wékils who fear the consequences of their neglect, misrepresents the case in perfectly good faith in the opposite direction.

On the 26th of March the Commissioners of the Domaines wrote to the governor of a province to call his attention to the fact that there was no water in certain great canals which should serve as arteries for irrigation to a district in which the Commission has a good deal of land. The crops on foot were in need of water, and without it the harvest would be compromised; will the Moudir be so good as to order the opening of dams, or otherwise release the water? On the 6th of May came a letter from the Moudir expressing surprise at the request of the Commissioners, for on making inquiry he had found that there was water in the canals in question, and he hoped all would go well. It is quite possible that the original negligence to provide water was withheld from the governor's knowledge, and that his staff forgot to propose his answer to the Commission till they had taken steps to repair their fault.

6

Questions arise as to the number of men who are bound to render corvée labour. The Ministry sends out orders through its provincial machinery, that such and such villages owe so many labourers. But before the levée can be made, there must be abated the sick and infirm, readers of the Kuran, those who serve mosques, and certain others of what are called the professional' class-i.e. those who do not get their living by manual labour. It has happened that when this operation has been completed, the number of men assigned as the quota for the corvée would deplete the village. The explanation of this discrepancy is not to be sought in the extraordinary growth of the sick list at such times, especially among those who have a few napoleons to spare, though that cause no doubt operates. It is to be found in the fact that the estimate of the population in the village or district is based upon a census taken forty years ago—that in the interval there has been emigration to other spots, and that there has been no revision since for corvée, and in some cases also for fiscal, purposes.

Then the corvée itself-what an instrument it is-how wonderful in its construction, how marvellous in its work! Great as have been the efforts of Ali Pasha Moubarek, aided by Roussot Bey-till lately the only European attached to the Public Works Ministry-to improve the instrument and its conditions of service, the corvée as it VOL. X.-No. 57.

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exists is a disgrace to the Government, and one of the feeblest and most inefficient possible of the public resources.

In a country artificially irrigated, and under a continuous obligation to provide against the encroachments of the Nile, it is impossible with a sparse population to abolish the corvée altogether. Forced labour in Egypt is a prime necessity, the ordinary labour market being quite unable to supply the need. But the necessity being recognised, the means of meeting it should be so organised as to draw away from needful husbandry the fewest possible persons, while care should be taken that those who are drawn should be able workmen, provided with the tools for executing their work as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. Yet what meets the eyes of one whom duty or curiosity carries among the corvée workers? An unorganised crowd of human beings of all ages-old age and extreme youth being chiefly represented—immersed in damp mud up to their knees, engaged in scooping up lumps of canal slush into their hands and throwing it as high as they can towards the bank of the stream. Not a shovel, not a spade, not a tool of any kind is there among the whole of them; the mud they throw up lies where it falls, dries, cakes, and then cracks, in the sun, till during the ensuing months the wind topples it back again into the bed of the cleaned canal. No wonder that with such appliances, and with such endless miles of canal to clean, the local engineers in some places omit the work of cleaning altogether, till the level of the canal bed is superior to that of the maximum height of its feeder. There are canals in the north of the Delta which have not been cleaned out for sixteen years.

Under the late Minister of Public Works the experiment was tried of allowing persons liable to corvée to redeem themselves by the payment of a fixed sum. But it failed completely for lack of competent administrative machinery. The redemption money was to be laid out in hiring qualified free labour, supplemented by machinery or tools, and a really serviceable instrument was to be constructed. But the basis of the levy was the forty-year-old census, and there was a want of power and of organisation in the Ministry to overcome this radical defect. Till the indispensable corvée is regulated in Egypt on the same basis as it is in France, till the number requisitionable is based upon the statistics of to-day, and the price of redemption is regulated according to local earnings, till the men who serve are properly organised and furnished with the tools necessary to their work, above all till machinery takes the place of the joined hands at the bottom of the canal bed-this branch of the Public Works Department will remain the almost useless and perfectly cruel instrument it is.

Of the Finance Ministry, the key of the internal situation, the writer has no intention to speak, except to bear witness to the vast improvement which has taken place in its administration since the