THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE EGYPTIAN SYSTEM. 



[Extract* front, the Report of 1899.] 



There are, broadly speaking, two methods of dealing with this 

 problem, which, in spite of local differences, presents much the same 

 features in all countries where a backward agricultural population 

 is brought in contact with those modern principles on which the 

 relations between debtor and creditor are based in all civilized 

 countries. 



The first is to protect the cultivator fiom the possible consequences 

 of his own improvidence, ignorance, or carelessness by protective 

 legislation, which is devised so that, in one form or another, his 

 freedom of contract is curtailed. 



The other is to dispense with all legislative measures of a 

 protective character, and to seek for a solution by giving to the 

 cri\.i\V9bor$ facilities for borrowing at reasonalle rales, and thus both 

 affording an opportunity to those who are already embarrassed of 

 shaking themselves free from the grip of the usurer, and at the same 

 time providing a means to those who have so far escaped financial 

 embarrassment of maintaining themselves in a position of solvency. 



I need not here discuss the merits and demerits of these two 

 methods. It will be sufficient for my present purposes if I state 

 that the second has been adopted in Egypt in preference to the 

 first method. 



There is nothing novel in the principle. Land banks have for 

 a long time past existed in many countries. Such an institution, 

 under the name of the "Credit Foncier," was established some years 

 ago at Cairo. I have explained in my previous Reports that this 

 institution, though in many respects of great utility, did not aid 

 in the solution of the special problem now under discussion, the reason 

 being that the minimum advance made by the "Credit Foncier" \\;t- 

 100, a sum in excess of the loans usually contracted by the 

 Eg}i|)tian peasantry. 



It is in the detailed application of the principle that, so far as my 

 knowledge of the subject enables me to judge, the Egypt inn system 

 possesses some novelty. I need hardly add that, in a matter of this 

 sort, the details are of great importance. 



