i 5 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Egypt has been a practical abolition of human slavery. Under 

 existing regulations every slave in Egypt (the former great mar- 

 ket for enslaved people of Africa) may demand his manumission 

 if he chooses ; and if the Soudan be retaken by Egyptian troops 

 under British leadership, it will be equivalent to opening the 

 prison doors to hundreds of thousands of captives. 



In 1876 the district known as the " Fayoum," on the west side 

 of the Nile, southwest of Cairo, was, according to a correspondent 

 of the London Times, " reduced by misrule to the greatest depths 

 of misery ever probably experienced in modern times in Egypt. 

 The burden of taxation and oppression had produced an amount 

 of want which almost bordered on starvation. At the present 

 time (1894) it is one of the most prosperous and contented of prov- 

 inces, and bids fair to become in the future the very garden of 

 Egypt." 



A further striking proof of the prosperity of Egypt under 

 British administration is afforded by the financial report for 1895, 

 made by Lord Cromer, the British diplomatic agent, which shows 

 a revenue in excess of all expenditures for that year of 1,088,000 

 ($5,440,000). 



That the continued prosperity and development of Egypt are 

 dependent on the continued administration of the country by the 

 British Government seems too clear to admit of questioning ; and 

 it is also not less evident that if Egypt should now be abandoned 

 by it, all that has been done for it would be speedily undone.* 



Finally, in considering the recent and remarkable fiscal experi- 

 ence of Egypt, one point of great economic interest should not be 

 overlooked namely, the lesson it teaches of the closeness of the 

 relations of the finances of a state to the welfare of its people ; 

 and that these relations, which are apt to be obscured, or even 

 wholly lost sight of, under conditions of high and complex civiliza- 

 tion, speedily make themselves apparent, and are therefore more 

 easily traced and studied in a country of limited area and simple 

 conditions of living on the part of its people. This experience 

 historically groups itself under three separate and distinct peri- 

 ods : First, the period of reckless prodigality under the reign of 

 Ismail Pasha, from 1863 to 1879, of sixteen years. Second, a period 

 of sudden retribution fraught with widespread misery, from 1879 



* In a recent debate (1896) in the British House of Commons, Mr. Chamberlain, the 

 Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, said : " It would be impossible to pass judg- 

 ment upon the policy of the Government unless the Government first made up its mind 

 definitely in regard to the immediate evacuation of Egypt. Nothing in recent history could 

 be looked back to with more pride and satisfaction than the peaceful revolution in Egyptian 

 affairs which had been accomplished with a handful of men and a British civil administra- 

 tion. If Egypt should be abandoned, all this would be undone. Egypt must be defended 

 if her prosperity was to continue." 



