444 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. 



defray the costs of the British military occupation, although to meet these heavy 

 charges it has also been found necessary to draw upon the revenues of the home 

 country. The conveyance of the Queen's troops to Sudan, including provisions 

 and supplies of all sorts, has been estimated to amount to at least £1,000 per 

 head. 



In spite of the official budgets, which at the beginning of each financial year 

 show a balance in favour of the treasury, the Grovernment has for some time been 

 hopelessly drifting to a state of absolute bankruptcy. In fact, payments would have 

 been already suspended but for the loan of £8,000,000 sanctioned by the British 

 Parliament and guaranteed by the European powers in the year 1885. The lowest 

 rate of interest on the advance made by foreign bankers and capitalists since 1870 

 is 121 per cent. ; but numerous debts have been contracted at even double that heavy 

 rate of interest.* Thus it has come to pass that within the short space of ten years 

 the Egyptian people, who still supposed their masters to be the wealthiest in the 

 world, found themselves saddled with a debt of nearly £120,000,000, or in the pro- 

 portion of over £80 per family. 



The Egyptian army, composed of about 3,000 men, or scarcel}-^ more than one- 

 fifth of its former strength, has been reduced to the position of a mere police force, 

 and the question of its complete suppression has even been discussed. Meanwhile 

 the conscription, without being officially abolished, has fallen into abeyance. 



All the military service is now being performed by the British troops, which 

 towards the end of the year 1884 numbered over 13,500 men, and which in the 

 spring of the next year had been raised to a total effective strength of nearly 25,000 

 for the whole of Egypt and the Sudan. Special constables have even been introduced 

 from England, while the local constabulary is completely under the control of the 

 British authorities. 



The fleet comprises officially about a dozen steamers, manned by perhaps 2,000 

 hands. 



Future Prospects. 



Certainly the Egyptian people would not be justified in placing too much 

 reliance on the promises held out to it of political independence. Although, like 

 most other modern nations, it has also its constitution drawn up in a charter of 

 forty-nine articles, it elects no representatives, nor is it consulted in any way on 

 political matters. The Assembly of Delegates, which was annually convoked under 

 the government of Ismail in order to take into consideration the financial situation 

 of the current year, has ceased to meet as a deliberative body. Nevertheless, there 

 can be no doubt that the national sentiment is being gradually but steadily 

 developed in Egypt, although the country has forcibly become an integral part of 

 the European world, and although the European powers are continually interfering 

 more and more in its internal affairs. At the same time these very powers will 

 have henceforth to reckon not only with the European element settled 'in the Nile 



* MacCoan, "Egj'pt as it is." 



