270 



EGYPT. 



interest, E. 55,988,480 ; Daira Sanieh loan at 

 4 per cent., E. 17,299,360: Domains loan at 5 per 

 cent., E. 5,080,820. The interest on these 

 various loans for 1891 amounted to E. 4,112,- 

 969, in addition to which there was to pay 

 E. 198,800 interest on Suez Canal shares held 

 by the English Government, E. 34,870 to the 

 Daira Sanieh loan commissioners, and E. 153,- 

 846 on account of the Moukabala, or internal 

 debt, which was commuted into an annuity of 

 that amount running till 1930. 



In 1890 the Egyptian Government collected a 

 larger revenue than in any previous year since 

 the reign of Ismail Pasha. The total was 

 E. 10,237,000. Of the surplus, amounting to 

 E. 599,000, only E. 270,000 was available for 

 public needs and the remission of taxation, the 

 balance being retained by the Commissioners of 

 the Public Debt, in accordance with the condi- 

 tions attached by France to her sanction of the 

 conversion scheme. The reserve fund, which 

 was constituted in 1887, amounted to nearly 

 E. 1,745,000 at the end of 1890, including a 

 special reserve of E. 400,000 that is likewise 

 available against any extraordinary deficiency in 

 the revenue or extra works of public utility. 

 The regular expenditure of the Public Works 

 Department in 1890 was E. 900,000, and in 

 addition to this E. 435,000 were expended for 

 extraordinary purposes, for which a further sum 

 of E. 335,000 was appropriated in 1891. The 

 sacrifices of revenue made in the last few years 

 are stated to be E. 656,000, viz., E. 410,000 

 for the abolition of forced labor : E. 123,000 for 

 the remission of professional taxes ; and E. 123,- 

 000 for abolishing weighers' fees and other relief 

 to tax payers. The net revenue from customs in 

 1890 was E. 1,300,000, the increase of E. 360,- 

 000 being chiefly due to the raising of the to- 

 bacco duties and the prohibition of the native 

 cultivation of tobacco. Of the duty collected on 

 tobacco, E. 510,000 was estimated to be due to 

 importations in anticipation of the increased tax 

 on tobacco. The remission of taxation carried 

 out in 1890 amounted to E. 53,000, the sheep and 

 goat tax and the octroi duty on oil having been 

 abolished. Telegraph rates were reduced 50 per 

 cent., making them as low as anywhere in Eu- 

 rope, and the price of postal cards was lowered. 

 The total amount of fiscal relief involved in the 

 measures carried through in 1890 was estimated 

 by Sir Evelyn Baring at E. 175,000. The 

 Daira Sanieh deficit, which was E. 268,000 in 

 1886, was reduced in 1890 to E. 80,000, and 

 the European managers expected in 1891 to be 

 able to show a small surplus. The powers were 

 asked for their consent to the application of 70,- 

 000 of the proceeds of octroi duties to the 

 improvement of the sewers and sanitary ar- 

 rangements of Cairo. An edict prohibiting 

 direct imports of tobacco from Greece, France, 

 and Turkey, with the object of checking smug- 

 gling, was objected to and recalled as being a 

 violation of the capitulations. A further step in 

 the conversion scheme was consummated by a 

 contract made by the Rothschilds of London 

 and Paris on March 5, 1891, for the conversion 

 of the Ottoman 5-per-cent. loan of 1877 into 4- 

 per-cent. bonds, to sixty years. 



Military Forces. The Egyptian army, com- 

 manded by about 60 English officers, has at 



present a strength of about 13,000 men. The 

 British army of occupation, under the command 

 of Gen. Sir James Dormer, numbered 3,300 men 

 in the beginning of 1890. 



Agriculture. The cultivated area in Egvpt 

 is 4,963,460 feddans, about 5,112.000 acres. 

 Over three fifths of the population are engaged 

 in agriculture. The winter crops are corn, 

 wheat, and various other grains. Summer crops 

 of rice, sugar, and cotton are cleared off in time 

 for the winter sowing in October or November. 

 Between July and October sorghum and all 

 kinds of vegetables grow from the seed to ma- 

 turity. In Upper Egypt the old system of sub- 

 merging the land at high Nile is still practiced. 

 In the delta, for the sake of the cotton and sugar 

 crops, this has been to a large extent super- 

 seded by simple irrigation. Land thus treated 

 is not renewed by the fertilizing alluvium held 

 in suspension in the Nile at flood time, and 

 gradually becomes alkaline and sterile. The 

 canals traversing the delta in every direction 

 are kept full at low Nile by means of the great 

 dam, called the barrage, that has been completed 

 by Sir Colin Scott-Moncrieff. The average yield 

 of cotton is 325 pounds an acre. In 1890 the 

 cotton crop covered 864,400 feddans. The 

 number of date-palm trees in Upper and Lower 

 Egypt is 3,452,674. The number of farm ani- 

 mals and cattle, including camels, is stated to 

 be 1,668,860. In 1889 the area of the wheat crop 

 was 971,678 feddans ; of maize and durra, 

 1,406,073; of clover, 864,680; of beans, 546,705; 

 of barley, 485,651; of lentils, 47,182; of rice, 

 115,988; of fenugreek, 146,823; of potatoes and 

 other vegetable crops, 46,747; of sugar cane, 

 58,611; of vetch, 27,624; of melons, 30,101; of 

 lupins, tobacco, peas, flax, henna, indigo, cas- 

 tor-oil plant, sesame, etc., 42,679. The area 

 producing two crops was 922,000 feddans. In 

 Lower Egypt four crops are obtained in three 

 years and in Upper Egypt seven crops in six 

 years. In 1889 the failure of the Nile threw 298.- 

 745 feddans out of cultivation. In 1890 the yield 

 of cotton was nearly 400,000,000 pounds, that of 

 sugar was 60.000 tons, exceeding by 20 per cent, 

 the great crop of 1886, and all kinds of cereals 

 yielded abundant crops. Having completed the 

 barrage, the Government gave its attention to a 

 scheme for irrigating Upper Egypt by means of 

 storage reservoirs. The ambitious scheme of the 

 late M. de la Motte for damming up the Nile 

 and making it navigable up to Khartoum was 

 pronounced impracticable by an English en- 

 gineer, Mr. Willcocks, who went over the ground 

 in 1891 and worked out a plan for a barrage at 

 the first cataract that would submerge the ruins 

 of Philoe. Others proposed dams between Wady 

 Haifa and Assouan, ponding up the river in tha 

 narrow valley, reservoirs in the delta, or the 

 restoration of the Raiyan basin of Lake Moeris. 

 Finally, the Government decided to call an 

 international commission of engineers to meet 

 at Cairo and fix upon a site for a storage reser- 

 voir within the present limits of Egypt. 



Commerce. The exports of merchandise in 

 1889 had a total value of E. 11.953.200, as 

 compared with E. 7,738,343 in 1888 and E. 

 8,137,054 in 1887; the value of the imports was 

 E. 7,02C,960, as compared with E. 10,418.218 

 in the preceding year and E. 10,876,417 in 



