234 



EGYPT. 



to require 15,000,000 days of compulsory serv- 

 ice upon works of indisputable publio utility. 

 At first a regulation was made, allowing the 

 Fellahs to purchase release from personal serv- 

 ice by the payment of a sum of money; but 

 the law was changed so as to require every 

 one to furnish a substitute before he can se- 

 cure bis discharge, since it was found that the 

 indemnity fee was paid by all the Fellahs, 

 and labor could not be hired. 



The education of the people, a matter which 

 has hitherto been sadly neglected, has been 

 taken hold of, and a commission appointed for 

 the elaboration of a plan of reform. The first 

 decision arrived at has been put into execution 

 by the establishment of a normal school. 



The Khedive himself, who was made a poor 

 man by the surrender of his estates in 1877, 

 makes but a modest demand on the publio 

 revenues, the civil list assigned him being only 

 $500,000 in amount. The family connections 

 are more exacting, absorbing $1,100,000, in- 

 cluding the ex-Khedive's allowance. The Na- 

 tional Debt Office is a burdensome appendage, 

 costing $250,000 a year in high salaries paid 

 to the European officials. The two chiefs re- 

 ceive $20,000 each. Expensive foreign func- 

 tionaries are attached also to the Railway, Do- 

 main, and Daira Departments. The payment 

 of high salaries to international assistants has 

 had the result of securing to the ministers 

 an increase in their salaries of from $7,500 to 

 $15,000. 



The cost of the army is $1,850,000 a year, 

 of the navy $300,000. The army numbered, at 

 the time of the financial report, 13,500 officers 

 and men, and the navy not quite 11,500. The 

 pay of the soldiers was complained of as in- 

 sufficient, that of the officers averaging about 

 $500 a year, and that of the men barely $50. 



A decree, dated March 30th, created a Na- 

 tional Board of Education, on the French 

 model. It possesses extensive powers, and is 

 the supreme authority in educational matters. 

 The Minister of Public Instruction is the presi- 

 dent of the board. The amount assigned for 

 purposes of public instruction in 1881 was 

 $405,000. In the elementary education of the 

 people there has not even a beginning been 

 made yet. Of the above appropriation $50,000 

 was set aside for the new organization of edu- 

 cation ; $40,000 was assigned for the new 

 normal school ; an equal sum is spent on the 

 education of young men in France, and various 

 Government schools for law, technical instruc- 

 tion, medicine, languages, etc., consume the re- 

 mainder. 



The prison management, police, and quar- 

 antine systems in Egypt are very defective, 

 but they have the advantage of being inexpen- 

 sive. A curious item in the budget provides 

 $450,000 for protecting and feeding the pil- 

 grims to Mecca, and to encourage the great an- 

 nual pilgrimage. The mixed tribunals cost over 

 $750,000 a year. The native courts of justice 

 cost, with their host of functionaries, less than 



one third as much, but their administration of 

 justice is of the worst description. The sum 

 set aside for the year to meet the expenses of 

 the new judicial organization which is pro- 

 jected is only $45,000. The nominal amount 

 appropriated for public works is $2,250,000. 

 Of this, $250,000 was for the protection of the 

 country against floods, $500,000 for the main- 

 tenance of the great arterial canals called the 

 Mahmoudieh, the Katatbeh, the Ihrahimieh, 

 and the Ismailieh. The maintenance of the 

 Cairo Theatre, the Boulak Museum, nnd other 

 expenses which are otherwise classed in most 

 countries, are included in the budget for public 

 works. 



The exceedingly primitive and scanty needs 

 of the people explain the facility with which 

 the extraordinary demands for the liquidation 

 of the debt are met. The food, clothing, and 

 houses of the Fellah cost next to nothing. He 

 very seldom indulges in the only luxury of his 

 class, that of keeping two wives. His savings 

 are put in jewelry, which he converts into 

 money again in hard times. The Nile fails 

 the agriculturists, and a bad harvest occurs, on 

 an average once in every five yenrs. Since the 

 present management began, a marked improve- 

 ment in the houses and the whole standard of 

 comfort of the Fallaheen has been observed. 



The improvement in the credit of Egypt 

 through the successful operation of the liquida- 

 tion arrangement was the cause of a sudden 

 expansion of business and a large influx of 

 foreign capital. Companies were established 

 for land cultivation, for lending on mortgage, 

 for building purposes, for sugar-refining, for 

 water-supply, and many other purposes. The 

 interest on money fell, and the price of land 

 rose in many places 300 per cent. Irrigation- 

 pumps and agricultural machinery were im- 

 ported on a large scale; the importations of 

 these things were 30 per cent greater in 1880 

 than the year before, and in 1881 showed a 

 still larger increase. The largest part of the 

 new capital embarked in Egypt has come from 

 France. 



Counterfeiting frauds, which had been prac- 

 ticed on a large scale for ten years, were dis- 

 covered in the spring. The headquarters of 

 the coiners were at Geneva and Marseilles. 

 Factories in Switzerland were engaged in turn- 

 ing out millions of piasters a small, thin coin 

 of the value of five cents containing 30 per 

 cent less silver than the standard. False Pa- 

 pal francs and small Egyptian and Turkish gold 

 coins were also imported by the criminal or- 

 ganization, which included several persons of 

 position. As much as $1,500,000 of base money 

 was supposed to be in circulation. 



Although the Egyptian dominions cover an 

 area almost as great as Russia in Europe, the 

 lower Nile valley and the delta, which furnish 

 the whole of the revenues with which the Gov- 

 ernment is supported and the national debt 

 paid, are about the size of Belgium. The rest 

 of the huge empire is a financial drain upon the 



