about £400,000 was required to abolish the corvée system in so far as the clearing out of the canals was concerned. With infinite trouble, £250,000 a year had been obtained. This enabled the system of forced labour to be partially abolished. In 1883, the number of men called out for 100 days was 202,650. In 1886, the number fell to 95,093. In 1887, only 87,120 men were called out. The corvée system having been virtually doomed, the question naturally arose of how to dispense with the enforced services of the remaining 87,000 men. To complete the reform, a further expenditure of £150,000 a year was required. The Egyptian Government wished that this sum should be added to the amount of the administrative expenditure authorised by the Powers. This proposal was not, in the first instance, accepted. It would serve no useful purpose to narrate in detail the history of the tedious and, at times, somewhat angry negotiations which then ensued. They may well be buried in oblivion. It will be sufficient to say that, as time went on and the financial position improved, an immediate settlement became a matter of less urgency. Eventually, the death of Tewfik Pasha, in January 1892, afforded an unexpected opportunity for settling the question. The Egyptian Government, instigated by their British advisers, wished to signalise the accession of the young Khedive by the adoption of some measures which would be of general benefit to the population. They proposed to devote a portion of the economies resulting from the recent conversion of the Preference debt from a 5 per cent to a 3 per cent stock, to the abolition of the corvée, and at the same time to reduce the salt tax by 40 per cent. The French Government would not agree to any proposals which involved touching the economies. On the other hand, they VOL. II 2 E were unwilling to stand in the way of a reduction of the salt tax. But they coupled a condition with their acceptance of the Egyptian proposal. The London Conference of 1884 had agreed in principle that Europeans in Egypt should pay the professional tax, which had heretofore been only paid by Egyptians. After some tedious negotiations, a law applicable to all residents in Egypt, whether European or Egyptian, had been accepted by the Powers. At the time of Tewfik Pasha's death, the tax was, for the first time, about to be levied on Europeans, amongst whom it was naturally very unpopular. The French Government decided to make their assent to the Egyptian proposal relative to the reduction of the salt tax and the abolition of the corvée conditional on the abolition of the professional tax. Ultimately, it was arranged that the salt tax should be reduced; that the professional tax should be abolished both in respect to Europeans and Egyptians; and that the recognised limit of the administrative expenditure of the Egyptian Government should be increased by £150,000 a year, thus enabling money to be found to pay for the free labour which had taken the place of the corvée. Thus, after a struggle which lasted for eight years, this great reform was eventually accomplished. Begun when Egypt was in the throes of national bankruptcy, it was continued through a long period of diplomatic bickerings, which sometimes assumed an acute form and at other times lapsed into a chronic state of acerbity, and was at last concluded by the fortuitous circumstance that it became possible to drive a bargain over the grave of the dead Khedive. To Tewfik Pasha may be accorded the posthumous merit of having by his death overcome to some slight and temporary extent the demon of international jealousy, and of having thus given a final blow to the hateful system of forced labour which had existed in the country over which he ruled since the days of his Pharaonic predecessors. So far allusion has only been made to the forced labour which used to be employed in the work of clearing out the canals during the period of low Nile. The corvée has, however, from time immemorial been employed in Egypt to attain another object, namely, to guard the banks of the river during the period of high Nile and thus obviate any risk of inundation. It is essential to the well-being and safety of the country that this work should be performed. It has not as yet been found possible to abolish completely this description of corvée, but the number of men employed every year is small, and is steadily diminishing. CHAPTER LI CORRUPTION Universality of corruption-Steps taken to arrest it-Example of British officials-Diminution of corrupt practices. In no country probably has corruption-the canker which eats away the heart of most Eastern governments-been more universal than it was in Egypt during the reign of Ismail Pasha. Ismail had inherited from his predecessors an administrative system steeped in corruption. By his own action, he made this system doubly corrupt. He believed in bribery, if not as the only, at all events as the most effective system of government. Every man, he thought, had his price. He put into practice the principles of which Byron, in one of his cynical moods, has given us a description : "Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures, Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Ismail Pasha's subjects followed humbly in the footsteps of their master. They took and they paid bribes. From the half-naked donkey-boy, who in shrill tones demanded "bakhshish" to the extent of a piastre or two from the winter tourist, to the highly-placed Pasha, whose assistance could only be obtained by the payment of more substantial sums, all, or nearly all, were venal. The contractor bribed the Minister to obtain a contract on terms unduly advantageous to himself, and would then bribe the Clerk of the Works in order that he should not inquire too carefully as to whether the terms of the contract had or had not been strictly executed. The subordinate official bribed his superior in order to get promotion. The landowner bribed the engineer in order that he should obtain more water for his fields than was his due. The Kadis were paid by both the plaintiff and the defendant to any suit, the decision being usually given in favour of the highest bidder. The Government surveyors were bribed to make false measurements of land. The village Sheikhs were bribed to accord exemption from the corvée and from military service. The Police were bribed by everybody who had the misfortune to be brought in contact with them. The passenger by railway found it cheaper to give "bakhshish" to the guard or to the ticket-collector than to pay for a ticket. As a preliminary to bribing a Moudir to inquire into any alleged grievance, it was necessary for the petitioner to bribe the hungry satellites, who hang about the office of the Moudirieh, before the great man could be personally informed that any petition had been presented. The ramifications of the system were, in fact, endless. Egyptian official and social life was saturated with the idea that in Egypt personal claims and interests, however just on their own merits, could never be advanced without the payment of "bakhshish." It was from the first manifest that the adoption of more healthy ideas by an administrative service and by a society so thoroughly diseased as that described above, would be a work of time. One of |