Agricultural interests are dearer to the heart of the khédive than statecraft. He rides well, drives well, rises early, and is of abstemious habits. Turkish is his mother tongue, but he talks Arabic with fluency and speaks English, French, and German very well.
An agreement between England and Egypt had been entered upon January 19, 1899, in regard to the administration of the Sudan. According to this agreement, the British and Egyptian flags were to be used together, and the supreme military and civil command was vested in the governor-general, who is appointed by the khédive on the recommendation of the British government, and who cannot be removed without the latter’s consent. This has proved so successful that the governor-general, Sir Reginald Wingate, reported in 1901:
“I record my appreciation of the manner in which the officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers, and officials,—British, Egyptian, and Sudanese,—without distinction, have laboured during the past year to push on the work of regenerating the country. Nor can I pass over without mention the loyal and valuable assistance I have received from many of the loyal ulemas, sheiks, and notables, who have displayed a most genuine desire to see their country once more advancing in the path of progress, material success, and novel development.”
In 1898 there were in all about 10,000 schools, with 17,000 teachers and 228,000 pupils. Seven-eighths of these schools were elementary, the education being confined to reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. The government has under its immediate direction eighty-seven schools of the lowest grade, called kuttabs, and thirty-five of the higher grades, three secondary, two girls’ schools, and ten schools for higher or professional education,—the school of law, the school of medicine, with its pharmaceutical school and its school for nursing and obstetrics, polytechnic schools for civil engineers, two training-schools for schoolmasters, a school of agriculture, two technical schools, one training-school for female teachers, and the military school. In addition to the schools belonging to the Ministry of Public Instruction, there were under the inspection of that department in 1901 twenty-three primary schools of the higher grade, with an attendance of 3,585, and 845 schools of the lowest grade, with 1,364 teachers and an attendance of 26,831 pupils. There are 187 schools attached to various Protestant and Catholic missions, and forty-three European private schools.
The Koptic community supports one thousand schools for elementary education, twenty-seven primary boys’ and girls’ schools, and one college. The teaching of the Koptic language in the schools is now compulsory; the subjects taught, and the methods of teaching them, are the same as in vogue in other countries. Fifty per cent, of the Koptic male population can read and write well. The indigenous tribunals of the country are called Mehkemmehs, and are presided over by cadis. At the present time they retain jurisdiction in matters of personal law relating to marriage succession, guardianship, etc. Beyond this sphere they also fulfil certain functions connected with the registration of title of land. In matters of personal law, however, the native Christians are subject to their own patriarchs or other religious leaders.
In other matters, natives are justiciable before the so-called native tribunals, established during the period of the British occupation. These consist of forty-six summary tribunals, each presided over by a single judge, who is empowered to exercise jurisdiction in matters up to $500 in value, and criminal jurisdiction in offences punishable by fine or by imprisonment of three years or less. Associated with these are seven central tribunals, each chamber consisting of three judges. There is also a court of appeal in Cairo, one-half of its members being Europeans. In criminal matters there is always a right to appeal, sometimes to the court of appeal, sometimes to a central tribunal. In civil matters an appeal lies from a summary tribunal to a central tribunal in matters exceeding $500 in value, and from the judgment of a central tribunal in the first instance to the court of appeal in all cases. The prosecution in criminal matters is entrusted to the parquet, which is directed by a procurer-general; the investigation of crime is ordinarily conducted by the parquet, or by the police under its direction. Offences against irrigation laws, which were once of such frequent occurrence and the occasion of injustice and lawlessness, are now tried by special and summary administration tribunals.
The capitulations or agreements concerning justice entered into by all the Great Powers of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, relative to the trial and judgment of Europeans, include Egypt as an integral part of the Turkish Empire. Foreigners for this reason have the privilege of being tried by European courts. But if one party in a case is European and another Egyptian, there are special mixed tribunals, established in 1876, consisting partly of native and partly of foreign judges. These tribunals settle civil and also some criminal cases between Egyptians and Europeans, and in 1900 penal jurisdiction was conferred upon them in connection with offences against the bankruptcy laws.
There are three mixed tribunals of the first class, with a court of appeal, sitting at Alexandria. Civil cases between foreigners of the same nationality are tried before their own consular courts, which also try criminal cases not within the jurisdiction of the mixed tribunals, in which the accused are foreigners. By this well organised administration of justice, crime has steadily decreased throughout Egypt, and the people have learned to enjoy the benefit of receiving impartial justice, from which they had been shut off for many centuries.
About sixty per cent, of the inhabitants of modern Egypt belong to the agricultural class—the fellaheen. The peasantry are primitive and thrifty in their habits, and hold tenaciously to their ancient traditions. They are a healthy race, good-tempered and tractable, and fairly intelligent, but, like all Southern nations breathing a balmy atmosphere, they are unprogressive. Centuries of oppression have not, however, crushed their cheerfulness. There is none of that abject misery of poverty among the Egyptians which is to be seen in cold countries. There is no starvation amongst them. Food is cheap, and a peasant can live well on a piastre (five cents) a day. A single cotton garment is enough for clothing, and the merest hut affords sufficient protection. The wants of the Egyptians are few. Their condition, now freed from forced labour, called the “Courbash,” as also from injustice, crushing taxation, and usury, which characterised former administrations, compares favourably with the peasantry of many countries in Europe, and is equal, if not superior, to that of the peasantry of England itself.
Under the British protection there has been a renewal of the Koptic Christian race. They are easily to be distinguished from their Muhammedan countrymen, being lighter in colour, and resembling the portraits on the ancient monuments. They are a strong community in Upper Egypt, whither they fled from the Arab invaders, and they there hold a large portion of the land. They live mostly in the towns, are better educated than other Egyptians, and are employed frequently in the government service as clerks and accountants.