1874.] -^^ [Delmar 



No wheat is permitted to be shipped from Egypt without paying to 

 the government an export-duty of about 37i cents per bushel, and no 

 laborer is permitted to leave the countiy at all ; so that the conditions of 

 her industry are in a certain sense fixed. — MacGreggor. 



The Future op Egypt. 



Apart from the subject of her agricultural and commerciid rivalry with 

 the United States, Egypt possesses an interest to us which I trust will 

 furnish ample apology for the uncomplimentary terms in which I have 

 found it necessary to advert to her government, or what is the same thing, 

 the Khedive. Rulers have difiBculties to contend with which are not al- 

 ways readily appreciated by others, and doubtless the Khedive has his 

 share of them. He sees beneath him a country which demands incessant 

 labor for its cultivation ; a people, ignorant, superstitious and, as he be- 

 lieves, slow and lazy. His administration, bad as it seems to us, has 

 nevertheless been one of peace, and wholly unstained by the barbarous 

 cruelties that distinguished those of Mehemet Ali and Ibrahim and Abbas 

 Pasha. But although, to use the expression of the illustrious Turgot 

 with reference to the finance system of France under the reign of Louis 

 XV., the Khedive has not " killed the goose that lays the golden eggs,'' 

 he has plucked it to the bone. 



Were this j)otentate once to reflect how little glory there is iu such a 

 course, and how many millions of suffering human creatures would bless 

 him now and his name forever, did he change it ; were he but to consider 

 how infinitely more creditable in the eyes of the world, and more gracious 

 in the sight of the God ani the Prophet he worships would appear his 

 devotion to the amelioration of the condition of his people, than the 

 amassment of wealth and the building of palaces in which he is engaged, 

 it is perhaps nob too much to say that he would adopt a wholly different 

 national i^olicy. 



That this may be the case, and Egypt aff"orded an opportunity to rise 

 once more among the nations of earth — not as a land merely of archaeo- 

 logical remains, but as the abode of a numerous and prosperous people 

 — cannot but be the fervent wish, not only of all Americans, but of the 

 modern world at large. 



