234 



EGYPT. 



in 1879 to the above totals in the two succeed- 

 ing years. There were about $60,000,000 of 

 specie imported and only $12,500,000 exported 

 in the three years. 



The commerce of Alexandria and Port Said 

 is carried on entirely with steam-vessels. Port 

 Said has become the largest coal emporium in 

 the Mediterranean, importing over half a mill- 

 ion tons in 1881. British steamers of the ag- 

 gregate tonnage of 305,000 sailed to English 

 ports, and of 308,000 tons to Continental ports, 

 while the ships of other nations trading with 

 the Continent aggregated 521,000 tons. Odessa, 

 Trieste, Dunkirk, and Genoa are getting in- 

 creasing shares of the Egyptian trade. 



AGRICULTURE. The crop in Egypt depends 

 upon the Nile. One foot difference in the rise 

 of the Nile is estimated to be worth 2,000,- 

 000. The rise begins in June, and the fall in 

 September. In the last hundred years there 

 have been forty-five years of good floods, vary- 

 ing from twenty-four to twenty-seven feet ; 

 fifteen years of extraordinary floods; and a 

 bad Nile, rising only from ten to twenty feet, 

 for forty years. Irrigation is a great help. 

 The zowats and jobbers who water the fields 

 of the fellaheen for 3 an acre have four hun- 

 dred and seventy-six steam-pumps in opera- 

 tion, besides the 107,200 Persian water-wheels, 

 which employ 60,000 animals and 150,000 men 

 for six months of the year. American wind- 

 mills could be used with the greatest advantage 

 if it were not for the Arab prejudice against 

 windmills. There are, according to the surveys, 

 1,100,000 acres of desert land which could still 

 be easily reclaimed. The crop in Egypt has 

 been estimated at 53,000,000, or 10 per acre, 

 in good years. Mulhall's estimate for average 

 years, of twenty-four feet rise, is only about 

 8 per acre, as follows: 



The above estimates include the rum, flax- 

 seed, dates, and all other agricultural prod- 

 ucts. The excess of acreage is explained by 

 the fact that a part of the land produces double 

 crops. 



FINANCE. Ismail Pasha upon his accession 

 in 1863 found the Egyptian debt about $16,000,- 

 000, or $3 per head of the population. When 

 he was deposed in 1879 it had risen to $500,- 

 000,000, or nearly $90 per inhabitant. He had 

 actually received of the four hundred millions 

 of obligations he gave, which soon grew to 



four hundred and fifty millions, only about 

 $210,000,000. The difference of 50 per cent 

 or so was absorbed in bankers' commissions 

 and in the discount at which the loans were 

 taken. The amount of the nine loans, the first 

 of which was contracted by Said, the last by 

 Tevfik, and the rest by Ismail, the amount re- 

 ceived by them, and other particulars, are shown 

 in the subjoined table: 



The loans were negotiated with English and 

 French banking-houses at the exorbitant inter- 

 est shown in the above table. It is calculated 

 that 90,000,000 has been already drained from 

 the country in interest, that the actual debt of 

 Egypt has been entirely repaid in the interest 

 received by the bondholders, together with 

 interest computed at 6 per cent. The loans of 

 1862, 1864, and 1866, negotiated with Goschen, 

 were secured by the railroads, telegraphs, etc., 

 and drew only 8J per cent interest on the net 

 amount ; but the bondholders, in their haste to 

 be repaid, attached embarrassing sinking-fund 

 conditions, as did the takers of the loans of 

 1865 and 1867, negotiated through the Anglo- 

 Egyptian and Imperial Ottoman Banks respec- 

 tively, for which also 11 per cent annual inter- 

 est was charged. The annual interest and sink- 

 ing-fund charges on the 32,923,000 owing in 

 1870 were about 12 per cent. To meet them 

 Ismail was already reduced to ruinous shifts, 

 and his credit rapidly sank, until he was hope- 

 lessly enmeshed in the toils of usurers and spec- 

 ulators. The wheat and sugar crops were 

 pledged in advance, interest and compound in- 

 terest were mounting up, and he was obliged 

 to pay 18 and afterward 28 per cent per an- 

 num for advances from the Anglo-Egyptian 

 Bank. The contractors who were constructing 

 the public works for which he had contracted 

 the debts, took advantage of his difficulties to 

 exact an extra margin of profit of 80 per 

 cent. Concessions and contracts were obtained 

 through the venality of officials by which small 

 European capitalists rapidly became million- 

 aires during the period of Ismail's reckless 

 financiering.* In 1873 he might still have 

 been rescued from bankruptcy, by suspending 



* An example of the exorbitant profits reaped by European 

 contractors is seen in the Alexandria Harbor works, which 

 Sir Kivers Wilson made out to be worth intrinsically 1,420,- 

 000, but for which Sir George Elliot was paid 2,542,000 in 

 cash, besides the interest during construction. The railroads 

 and all the other enterprises of Ismail afforded an equal 

 margin to the contractors. 



