79 



Daira Sanieh in Lower Egypt, wherever these administrations liave 

 more than lOO acres, on the condition that the land is not rented and 

 that the ransomed men shall devote their labor to cultivation. Forced 

 labor is obligatory from the inhabitants of the villages where rice is 

 the predominating crop, or where the land tax is adjusted as it is for 

 such villages, but the corvee duty of such inhabitants will be only half 

 of that required from the inhabitants of other villages. 



Article 8: Where a cash payment is permitted in lieu of services, 

 about 1^6 is required in Lower Egypt and about l^-t in Upper Egypt. 

 After the year 1882 the amount of this payment shall be tixed annually, 

 and the minister of public works shall so notify the governors of the 

 provinces one nionth before the commencement of woi'k. The condi- 

 tions which shall affect the amount of this payment are the quantit}' of 

 material to be moved and the time when it is necessar}^ to perform 

 the work. 



Article 9: The minister of public works can, when he deems it nec- 

 essary, withdraw the privilege of the payment of cash instead of labor 

 as provided for in article 7, or he can substitute machine work iov 

 hand lalior. 



Article K): The money received in each province from this source 

 will be entered in a special register and deposited in the treasur}' of 

 the province and kept at the disposal of the minister of public works. 

 These sums can be spent only on works which have for their object 

 reduction or suppression of the corvee. 



Article 11: It is the duty of the minister of the interior to collect 

 and keep in service those subject to the corvee. 



The khedival decree issued in 1882 permitted the Arab farmers to 

 redeem themselves from the corvee b}^ a cash payment, and the same 

 decree frees the Bedouins from this service entirely. Lender the pro- 

 visions of this decree those having political influence gradually secured 

 relief from both the payment and the corvee service and the whole 

 burden fell on the poorer classes. Early in 1885 some of the fellaheen 

 of one of the districts applied for an investigation to l)e made of the 

 corvee conditions. It was found in an examination of the corvee serv- 

 ice from 11:5,000 acres that the entire number of men furnished came 

 from 33.000 acres. The state lands included within this district 

 redeemed about half of the renters, and the large landholders, Avho 

 own about 51:),00(» acres, paid nothing and furnished no labor. 



The partial reconstruction of the barrage in 1885 brought about the 

 first real relief to the fellaheen. This structure not Qnly furnished 

 water for the farmer during the period of low Nile, but also enabled 

 the discharge to be regulated in such a way as to reduce the volumes of 

 silt which were annuall}' deposited. In addition to this relief $150,000 

 was spent in paying those who worked on certain canals. This was an 

 experiment to see whether it was possible to relieve or wholly do awaj^ 

 with forced labor. The work was entirely successful. Mot only were 



