In April of the same year, whilst the Commission was still sitting, it became evident that there would be a deficit of £1,200,000 in the amount required to pay the May coupon of the Unified Debt. Further influences were brought to bear, and Mr. Vivian was instructed to join the French Consul-General in urging upon the Khedive the necessity of finding the requisite funds at whatever cost to himself. Ismail pointed out that this could only be done by ruinous sacrifices, which he promised should nevertheless be made if it was insisted on. The representatives of England and France remained firm, and the bondholders got their money. By what means this was accomplished it is needless to inquire. Rumours of frightful pressure being put on the unfortunate fellaheen, of forced loans and other desperate expedients, were prevalent in Cairo, and were probably only too well founded. It is said that even the jewellery of the ladies of Ismail's harem was requisitioned in order to make up the sum required.
Meanwhile the inquiry proceeded.
It would require too much space to give at length the details of the report which the Commission presented. Suffice it to say that it showed confusion and irregularity everywhere. Taxes were collected in the most arbitrary and oppressive manner, and at the most unfavourable periods of the year. The land tenures were so arranged that the wealthier proprietors evaded a great portion of the land tax, and the corvée, or system of forced labour, was applied in a way which was ruinous to the country. Further, the Khedive and his family had amassed, at the expense of the State, colossal properties, amounting, in fact, to as much as one-fifth of the whole cultivable land of Egypt, and this property the Commission declared ought to be given up. On every side the most flagrant abuses were shown to prevail. In conclusion, it was found that the arrangements made by the Financial Decrees of 1876 could not possibly be adhered to, and that a fresh liquidation was inevitable.
Ismail, after every effort to make better terms for himself, yielded to Rivers Wilson's requisitions, and accepted the conclusions of the Commission. He acquiesced with as good grace as he could in making over to the State the landed property of himself and family. He went even further, and in August, 1878, approved the formation of a Cabinet under the presidency of Nubar Pasha, with Rivers Wilson as Minister of Finance and M. de Blignières (the French member of the Commission of the Public Debt) as Minister of Public Works. At the same time, as if to show Europe that he had seriously entered on the path of reform, the Khedive proclaimed his intention to renounce personal rule and become a Constitutional sovereign, governing only through his Council of Ministers.
CHAPTER II.
ISMAIL PASHA.
Any history of Egyptian affairs at the time of the events referred to in the present chapter would be incomplete without a sketch of Ismail Pasha himself. He was then forty-six years of age, short in stature, and heavily and squarely built. He was corpulent in figure, of dark complexion, and wore a reddish brown beard closely clipped. With one eye startlingly bright and the other habitually almost closed, he gave one the idea of a man of more than ordinary intelligence.
Speaking French fluently, and possessed of a peculiarly fascinating manner, Ismail exercised an almost mesmeric influence on those who came in contact with him. His business capacity was unbounded, and not the smallest detail, from the purchase of a coal cargo to the sale of a year's crop of sugar, was carried out without his personal direction. He was entitled to the denomination of Merchant Prince more than any one who ever bore the title, combining the two characters profitably for a long time, but in attempting to add to them that of a financier also he ended by wrecking his country.
The three great passions of Ismail were, his ambition to render Egypt independent of the Porte, his desire to accumulate landed property, and his mania for building palaces. His prodigality was unbounded, and as a result the indebtedness of Egypt was raised in fifteen years from £3,292,000, at which his predecessor left it, to over £90,000,000 at the time now referred to.
To do Ismail justice, it must be admitted that a large part of this money was spent in the construction of railways, canals, and other improvements, and in beautifying Cairo, which it was his aim to convert into a sort of Oriental Paris. But after allowing for all this, and for the two millions sterling spent in the fêtes which attended the opening of the Suez Canal, there is still a large balance left unaccounted for.