[Extracts from the Report of 1899.1 



The experiment, however, was sufficient to show both that the 

 fellaheen would willingly avail themselves of whatever facilities 

 could be offered for borrowing at a low rate of interest, and that 

 the practical difficulties in the way of recovering the principal and 

 interest, on a number of small loans, though considerable, were not 

 insurmountable. 



The next step taken was to induce the Egyptian Credit Foncier to 

 lewer the minimum amount of its advances to E. 100. This 

 measure was practically unproductive of result, the minimum being 

 still too high to meet the requirements of the mass of the borrow- 

 ing classes. 



C7 



The establishment of a National Bank in 1898 enabled a further 

 experiment to be made under circumstances which were more favour- 

 able to success. Indeed, one of the main reasons which induced the 

 Government to assent to the creation of this Bank was a desire to 

 facilitate the treatment of the question now under discussion. 



The Belbeis district in Lower Egypt was chosen as the field 

 of operations. This district consists of sixty-eight villages. In 

 eighteen of these the land is held by large proprietors. During the 

 spring and early summer of 1899, 1,580 advances amounting in all 

 to E. 4,780, were made by the Bank in the fifty villages where the 

 land is held in small lots. These loans were all repayable in the 

 autumn. The result, I am informed by SIR EDWIN PALMER, the 

 Governor of the Bank, "has been thoroughly satisfactory ; the whole 

 of the money due in the year was collected by the Govenment tax- 

 collectors." 



I should explain that the debts of the fellaheen may be divided 

 into two distinct categories. In the first place, it is a very general 

 practice amongst the Egyptian cultivators to borrow small sums in 

 the early part of the year and to repay the loan and interest in the 

 awtumn, after the cotton has been sold. In the second place, loans 

 larger in amount and of longer duration are, for various reasons, 

 contracted. 



It was obvious that very little would be done to relieve the 

 population generally if the Bsuik confined its operations solely to 



