PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION, 151 



poses land devoted to growing rice crops requiring constant 

 watering, but which must never be inundated. " From time im- 

 memorial Egyptian law has recognized an intimate connection 

 between the land tax and water supply. The land which, in any 

 given year, gets no water, is for that year legally exempt from all 

 taxation whatever. As soon as it gets water its liability is estab- 

 lished. But it is evident that the mere fact of receiving some 

 water, though it may set up the liability of the cultivator to pay, 

 does not insure his capacity to do so. In order to insure that, he 

 must get his water in proper quantities, and at the proper times. 

 But this is just what, in thousands of instances, he could not get, 

 as long as the irrigation system remained in the state of unutter- 

 able neglect and confusion into which it had fallen in the period 

 previous to the British occupation of the country." Arrears of 

 land taxes throughout the whole country to the amount of about 

 $5,000,000 have been remitted altogether by the commission, while 

 lands incapable of cultivation, but heretofore made subject to 

 taxation, have to a great extent been relieved.* 



The area of land under cultivation in Egypt in 1894 was about 

 five millions of acres; and in the least prosperous part of the 

 country the tax on the same has been reduced, since the creation 

 of the commission, to an extent of at least thirty per cent. The 

 revenue from the taxation of land, which is at present estimated 

 as not exceeding on an average 1 ($5) per acre, constitutes fully 

 one half of the total receipts of the Egyptian treasury. 



In 1886, before the reduction in this tax had been made, 



* " A considerable class of lands, called mazroof, sold many years ago by the Govern- 

 ment at a quitrent which in the course of time had come to be looked upon as a specially 

 high rate of land tax, has also been assimilated to the surrounding districts. 



" Another measure of great importance for the future has been the adoption of more 

 liberal fiscal regulations with regard to land brought for the first time under cultivation. 

 Formerly the first attempt to reclaim a piece of uncultivated land brought down the tax- 

 gatherer, who at once subjected it to the full burden of the land tax. Now it remains un- 

 taxed until it yields the first remunerative crop, and then for two years it pays only half 

 the normal rate. In the same broad spirit, facilities have been granted to people who are 

 found without proper title in possession of land belonging to the Government, but on which 

 they have spent labor and money in developing. Such occupiers can nowadays be confirmed 

 in possession on very easy terms, in which full account is taken of all improvements. 

 Finally, a scheme has been devised, and has been already applied with considerable success, 

 for securing relief, without having to enter upon a general reassessment, in those no longer 

 very numerous cases where the existing land tax is really excessive. Instead of allowing, 

 as hitherto, arrears to accumulate which have ultimately to be remitted, the defaulting land 

 is seized and put up for sale, but on such terms as to facilitate the re-entry of the owner 

 on a lighter rating wherever the arrears are shown to be due to a prohibitive assessment in 

 the past. 



" Thus, not only the huge accumulation of arrears and the many smaller obstacles have 

 been removed which blocked the approaches to the land tax, but the land tax itself has been 

 cleared of its most mischievous excrescences." 



