88 Financial Speculations in Egypt [1904 



Cromer is to be sympathized with, and I am glad the intrigue failed, 

 though Gorst has been personally friendly with us here, but these 

 money speculations at the Finance Office are intolerable, and Gorst 

 deserves his disappointment. Yesterday Dormer (who is in the Fin- 

 ance Office), came to luncheon, and added his share of information. 

 Gigantic financial operations are in progress. A concession of all the 

 Egyptian State railways is being given to a company of which Rivers 

 Wilson is head. For this the Company is to pay forty-two millions 

 sterling down. The present income from the railroads is sixteen hun- 

 dred millions, so that the company at actual rates will get three per 

 cent, for its capital, with prospect of indefinite extension. Cassel, too, 

 has been in treaty for a concession of all the Government lands in 

 Upper Egypt for some other prodigious sum. We suppose the idea 

 is to convert and pay off the whole public debt, and so get the Caisse 

 de la Dette and all other restrictions abolished. For the present, how- 

 ever, the French Government holds out against all changes. 



" In the evening I looked in on the Mufti and recounted to him the 

 whole story of the Gorst-Cromer quarrel. I always tell him everything, 

 and he tells me everything, and so between us we know everything. 

 He said that the account fitted in with all that he had himself heard 

 and noticed during the past year. The Khedive, when he was in 

 London, had attempted to open the question of Cromer's retirement 

 at the Foreign Office, but had been stopped, and Cromer this winter 

 had spoken to him (the Mufti) impatiently of Gorst, so that he was 

 quite prepared for what I had to tell him, and he knew all about the 

 financial intrigues which Gorst had encouraged the Khedive in. Gorst 

 had allowed the Khedive, for instance, to purchase the large Mariout 

 property of the Government for a very trifling sum, and had helped 

 him in other ways to make money, more or less at the Government's 

 expense. He was much amused at the lady's part in the intrigue. 

 It had come round to him through a friend who happened to be on 

 board the ship that took the Khedive last summer to Constantinople, 

 that His Highness had boasted to his fellow travellers that a certain 

 high English personage had promised to get rid of Sheykh Moham- 

 med Abdu for him. Abdu had talked the incident over with his 

 friend, Mustapha Pasha Fehmy. 



" 15th March. — It is now decided we are all to go to Damascus 

 on Thursday. Anne and I, Cockerell and Miss Lawrence and Mutlak, 

 to look for horses. To-day the Mufti called. He had talked of going 

 with us to Damascus, but has reflected that it would not do. ' If you 

 and I,' he said, ' were to go together to Damascus the Sultan would 

 go mad. He would think that we had come to proclaim the Arabian 

 Caliphate. 



" lyth March. — I have written to George Wyndham to get him to 



