EGYPT. 



of 9 895,030 tons, of which 2,310, of 6,586,311 tons, 

 were British; 387, of 1,070,767 tons, German; 226, 

 of 508,819 tons, French; 206, of 418,867 tons, 

 Dutch; 101, of 266,360 tons, Austrian; 65, of 224,- 

 636 tons, Japanese; 55, of 171,589 tons, Russian; 

 69, of 132,765 tons, Italian; 59, of 123,757 tons, 

 Norwegian; 38, of 114,149 tons, Spanish; 26, of 

 67,690 tons, American; 21, of 58,062 tons, Danish; 

 26, of 36,670 tons, Turkish; 5, of 12,411 tons, 

 Belgian; 4. of 8,438 tons, Greek; 2, of 1,921 tons, 

 Egyptian; 3, of 1.288 tons, Portuguese; 2, of 592 

 tons, Swedish: and 1, of 538 tons, Siamese. The 

 receipts in 1899 were 94,317,505 francs, of which 

 88.698,555 francs came from tolls. The expenses 

 were 24,863,166 francs, leaving a gross profit of 

 69.454,339 francs. The number of passengers who 

 passed through the canal was 221,347. The share 

 and loan capital on Jan. 1, 1900, amounted to 

 464,100,827 francs, increased by 151,174,307 francs 

 of revenue applied to improvement of the canal 

 and 17,764,598 francs of redemption and insurance 

 funds, making the total capital 633,039,732 

 francs. The net profit for 1899 was 54,153,660 

 francs. The amount distributed in dividends was 

 51,538,028 francs. 



In 1900 the number of vessels that passed 

 through the canal was 3,441, of 9,738,152 tons, 

 comprising 2,407 merchant vessels, 773 mail- 

 steamers, and 261 war-vessels. The number of 

 passengers was 282,194. The traffic receipts were 

 90,623,608 francs. The civilian passengers num- 

 bered 102,000; pilgrims, convicts, and emigrants, 

 25,000; military, 155,000. Owing to events in 

 China, Russia sent out 37,000, France 34,000, and 

 Germany 24,000 troops, while British outward- 

 bound troops fell from 19,000 in 1898 and 15,000 

 in 1899 to 5,600. The United States troops home- 

 ward bound from the Philippines numbered 22,000, 

 and outward bound 13,000. The British mer- 

 cantile tonnage declined from 77.2 per cent, in 

 1899 to 71 per cent., and that of Germany in- 

 creased from 9.3 to 11.1 per cent, of the total. 

 Of the total number of vessels 1,935 were British, 

 462 German, 285 French, 232 Dutch, 126 Austrian, 

 100 Russian, 82 Italian, 63 Japanese, 34 Spanish, 

 30 Norwegian, 28 Turkish, 27 Danish, 22 Ameri- 

 can, 7 Belgian, 3 Portuguese, 2 Swedish, 2 Greek, 

 and 1 Argentine. The mean net tonnage per ves- 

 sel has increased from 1,951 tons in 1889 to 2,743 

 tons in 1899 and 2,830 tons in 1900. A loan of 

 100,000,000 francs authorized in 1885 for improve- 

 ments was finally exhausted in 1901, and a new 

 loan of 25,000,000 francs was sanctioned. The 

 adoption of the electric light for night traffic and 

 the increase of business culminating in 1899 en- 

 abled the company to carry out a great part of 

 the work of improvement with surplus earnings. 

 Further improvements to be made are a new series 

 of stations for large vessels and the deepening of 

 tin- canal to 9} meters. 



Economical Development. The British ad- 

 ministration, which has rehabilitated the finances 

 of Egypt, has wrought improvement in the public 

 life of the country as well as in its economical 

 situation, which has been immensely bettered by 

 the irrigation works begun by French and carried 

 to completion twenty years later by English en- 

 gineers. The cultivated ground subject to taxa- 

 tion has increased from 4,175,000 feddans in 1880 

 to about 6,000,000 feddans in 1900, and the im- 

 provement in the water-supply has increased pro- 

 duction 50 per cent. Numerous railroads have 

 been constructed, including electric lines by which 

 cotton is transported and travel facilitated in the 

 country districts. The land tax, the principal 

 source of revenue of the Egyptian Government, 

 has been gradually diminished in annual instal- 



ments by the sum of E. 563,000, yet owing to 

 the extension of the cultivated area the proceeds, 

 remain about the same as in 1880. Post and tele- 

 graph offices have multiplied, and even the tele- 

 phone has been introduced. 



One of the social improvements that the 

 British have endeavored to introduce is to free 

 the fellaheen from their indebtedness to the 

 money-lenders, who constitute a large unproduc- 

 tive class. Although their average gains are not 

 great, the aggregate burden bears enormously 

 on the producers, who pay 40 and 50 per cent, 

 interest. The banks were induced to lend small 

 sums for fixed terms at 10 per cent, through 

 local agents, who receive a commission of 1 

 per cent., which gives them a sufficient motive 

 to present the advantages of the new system to 

 the fellaheen and persuade them to borrow at the 

 lower rate in order to pay off their loans ob- 

 tained at exorbitant rates from the usurers. Eng- 

 lish inspectors supervise the agents, and see that 

 contracts are honestly drawn up. The Govern- 

 ment collects the instalments along with the ordi- 

 nary taxes and pays them over to the banks, 

 w T hich have no. expense in placing or collecting the 

 loans, for which they receive 6 per cent, net in- 

 terest, aside from the risk of bad debts, which is 

 very slight, E. 28,122 having been collected in 

 1900 from 5,035 borrowers without any default. 



Lord Cromer regards the fellaheen as naturally 

 more thrifty than the English peasantry. The 

 desire of the Egyptians to learn European lan- 

 guages is not encouraged by the Government, 

 which is anxious to improve the instruction in 

 the vernacular schools. Of those who do study 

 European languages 85 per cent, choose English, 

 which is now a passport, rather than French, to 

 Government employ. There are far too many 

 small official posts, depending on abuses which 

 the British intend to reform, and for these there 

 is a great excess of applicants. Of native artisans 

 there is a great lack, most of the mechanical work 

 being done by imported foreigners. There are over 

 2,000 girls in the Government schools, showing 

 that the Egyptian prejudice against the educa- 

 tion of women, 99.7 per cent, of whom were un- 

 able to read and write in 1897, is being gradually 

 overcome. 



The completion of the Nile barrage at a cost of 

 less than 500,000 has doubled the cotton crop of 

 Lower Egypt, adding E. 5,000,000 a year to 

 the national production. The projects for the 

 benefit of Egyptian agriculture were estimated in 

 1885 at a total cost of E. 7,000,000. In 1902 

 the last and greatest of these will be completed 

 the great dams at Assouan and Assoiut which 

 will enable wide tracts of land to bear two crops a 

 year instead of one, bring waste districts into 

 tillage, and greatly increase the area of sugar cul- 

 tivation. The Assouan reservoir will supply 1,000,- 

 000,000 cubic meters of water annually. The dam 

 at Assouan is 1| mile long, pierced by 180 open- 

 ings, 23 feet high and 7 feet wide, which haVe 

 steel sluice gates. The regulating dam at Assoiut 

 is a barrage of masonry on steel piling, with 119 

 sluices 16 feet wide. Sir William Garstin, who 

 has studied a plan to provide 3,000,000,000 or 

 4,000,000,000 cubic meters more to Egypt's sum- 

 mer supply of water, rejects the project of Mr. 

 Willcocks, the designer of the Assouan reservoir, 

 of a dam at the outlet of the Victoria Nyanza, be- 

 cause such a dam would flood populous and fer- 

 tile regions on the borders of the lake, half the 

 territory affected being German. He considers 

 it impracticable to impound the waters of the 

 Albert Nyanza for the purpose, because the earth- 

 quakes that occur there would be dangerous to the 



