46 COTTON IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 



allow them 2 to 2^ feddans of fairly good land, and for each child 

 ^ feddan extra ; such land, for which the farmer has only to pay a 

 small rental equivalent to the land tax, must be cultivated in 

 accordance with instructions from the owner. Others, finally, have 

 introduced the system of dividing the yield, as the fellaheen gener- 

 ally prefer produce to money wages. In this way labourers engaged 

 on a cotton plantation where the soil is bad receive about one-third 

 to one-half of the crop ; where the soil is good only one-fifth. The 

 cotton stems are used as fuel, and belong to the labourers. States 

 Domains, as well as on the private Domains, are evidently anxious 

 to improve the conditions of their labourers, and, for instance, the 

 old neglected huts of the labourers are being replaced by new and 

 better habitations. The expenses incurred through the building of 

 these labourers' houses has been a good investment, as improved 

 dwellings mean lower wages ; a fellah is satisfied with a wage of 

 2 P.T. instead of 2J P.T. or 3 P.T. per day, if he is well housed. 



A direct lack of labour occurs only seldom, and then only at 

 such times when Government works are being carried out, as, 

 for instance, canal building and cleaning, &c. 



Taxes. The arable land is subject to a ground tax which from 

 1895 to 1907 was re-assessed, hand in hand with the survey of the 

 country, and is exactly in accordance with the conditions of the 

 cultivations ; as already stated, it is about 30 per cent, of the aver- 

 age rent, and this is to be fixed again in 30 years. All regularly 

 watered land has to pay this land tax ; unirrigated land does not pay 

 any tax. The rate of taxation for one feddan fluctuates between 

 2 P.T. and 164 P.T., 2 P.T. are paid for desert land, bought for 

 reclamation purposes, and 164 P.T. for the best Delta soil. On an 

 average one must calculate for cotton land in Upper Egypt 20 P.T. 

 to 100 P.T. ; in the Delta 50 P.T. to 164 P.T. The State levies now 

 only this land tax, and has abolished entirely the old and unjust 

 !< Ushari " and " Karadschi " taxes. It is only five years after the 

 assessment that the land tax has been levied, and in 1912 the last 

 of the 14 provinces of Egypt adopted it. Local taxation does not 

 exist, except in a very few towns. 



LAND CREDIT. 



A very difficult problem for the small man was formerly 

 the lack of land credit institutions. It is true, as far back as 1880, 

 mortgage banks, such as the " Credit fonder e"gyptien," and the 

 English " Land and Mortgage Company of Egypt," were in exis- 

 tence. The former was principally worked with French capital and 

 possessed from the beginning an unlimited right for the issue of 

 bonds, and both reduced, at the beginning of the last century, the 

 minimum amount of a loan to ^100, which, however, was still far too 

 high for the ordinary Egyptian peasant. For these reasons the 

 fellaheen were compelled to have recourse to the village usurer, 

 generally a Greek, who, unless the year was an exceptionally good 

 one, caused them to become bankrupt. In order to protect the 

 fellaheen from these usurious exploitations, and to preserve many 

 homesteads from ruin, after experiments undertaken by the Govern- 

 ment in 1895, the National Bank of Egypt (founded in 1898) was 

 ordered to advance to the fellaheen smaller sums at 10 per cent, per 



