149 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



almost every point of view as appalling. When lie commenced to 

 rule in 1863 " the debt of Egypt was a little over three million 

 pounds sterling ($15,000,000). The annual revenue of the country 

 was amply sufficient to meet all needful expenditure. Yet at the 

 end of 1876 the debt had risen to 89,000,000 ($445,000,000). A 

 country of six million inhabitants and only five million acres of 

 cultivated land had added to its burdens at the rate of 7,000,000 

 ($35,000,000) a year. At the same time the taxation of land had 

 been increased by something like fifty per cent. There is nothing 

 in the fiscal history of any country, from the remotest ages to the 

 present time, equal to this carnival of extravagance and oppres- 

 sion." (England in Egypt, by Sir Alfred Milner, late Under-Sec- 

 retary for Finance in Egypt. London, 1894.) 



The revenue annually collected under Ismail Pasha is probably 

 not accurately known, and has been reported as high as 15,000,- 

 000 ($75,000,000) from an estimated population in 1872 of 5,203,000. 

 But, whatever the amount, it is certain that a very considerable 

 portion of what was wrung from the miserable peasantry, never 

 found its way into any official ledger, or reached the national treas- 

 ury. Of a great loan of 32,000,000 effected by the Khedive in 

 1873, only 20,700,000 reached the Egyptian treasury. The total 

 amount sunk by the Government in the Suez Canal is estimated at 

 16,075,000 ($80,375,000). Yet Egypt has no share in the vast 

 profits of the undertaking. It was not, however, the amount of 

 taxation, crushing as it was in many cases, which worked the 

 greatest mischief. " It was, above all, the cruel and arbitrary man- 

 ner in which the taxes were collected. The fellah was seldom 

 sure of the amount that would be demanded of him. He was 

 never sure of the moment when the demand would be made. The 

 moment might, as likely as not, be the very one in which he was 

 least able to pay. Called upon to find ready money while his 

 crops were still in the ground, he was simply driven into the arms 

 of the money-lender. His choice lay between so many blows of 

 the hoorbash and the acceptance of the usurer's terms, however 

 onerous. Under these circumstances money was borrowed at as 

 much as sixty per cent per annum. Worse than that, it was often 

 obtained by the sale of the growing crops, which were estimated 

 for the purpose of the advance at half or less than half their 

 value. This state of things was bad enough, and it was pretty 

 general, but the ruin of the cultivator was consummated in many 

 instances by positive collusion with the usurer on the hint of cor- 

 rupt officials. The latter would demand the payment of taxes by 

 the peasant, who was already in debt, at the very time when the 

 interest on his debt was due. If he had any cash at all the au- 

 thorities were bound to get it. When the usurer came after them, 

 there was nothing left to the fellah but to surrender his land and 



