THE KARMOUS SUBURB, ALEXANDRIA, AND POMPEY’S PILLAR.
Something might have been done for Egypt, even at this time, if England had occupied the country; but Mr. Disraeli lost the golden opportunity, which did not return till France and Russia were in a position to offer an effective resistance which could not be bought off. The Khedive appealed for money to England, and Mr. Disraeli sent Mr. Cave to report upon his affairs. Mr. Cave said in effect that it was impossible to help the Khedive with money unless Englishmen were prepared to lose it. That report, however, did not touch the position of those who held with Mr. Edward Dicey that if England could establish a Protectorate in Egypt, and administer her affairs like an Indian Native State, it would be quite possible to extricate her from her financial difficulties without inflicting injustice on her creditors. In the meantime, the foreign bondholders sued the Khedive in his own Mixed Tribunals. They got judgment against him, but were unable to execute it. In May, 1876, his Highness met this judgment by a decree of repudiation, whereupon Germany indignantly protested, and France and England followed suit on behalf of the bondholders of their respective nationalities. It was here that Lord Salisbury first left the traditional lines of sound Foreign Policy. He interfered in Egypt, not on the ground that national interests had to be safeguarded, but—like Lord Palmerston in the case of Greece—to protect the interests of a few speculative individuals who had a bad debt to collect from Ismail Pasha. British national interests in Egypt, when really imperilled, can only be protected effectively in one way—by the occupation of the country, or its administration under a British Protectorate. They cannot be protected by entering into an ambiguous partnership for regulating the Khedive’s finances with Powers whose interests in Egypt are not national, but are represented by those of their subjects who have lent Egypt money on bad security. The Imperial interests of England demand that the government of Egypt shall be good and effective all round, so that the highway to India shall be through an orderly and contented people. The interests of the other Powers demand that the government of Egypt, whether good or bad, must be such as will enable her to give the Shylocks, whom they represent, their pound of flesh. It was for the interest of England to aim at a Protectorate, just as it was for the interests of the other Powers to aim merely at obtaining financial control over Egypt; and the fatal blunder which Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury made was in identifying England, not with British, but with foreign interests in Egypt. The French and English bondholders could not agree on the steps which should be taken to extort their money from the overtaxed Egyptian peasantry; and Mr. Goschen and M. Joubert were sent out to devise a scheme for consolidating the Egyptian debt in the common interests of all bondholders. By estimating the annual average revenue which could be extracted from the wretched fellaheen at £12,000,000 instead of £8,000,000, which would have been high enough, the Goschen-Joubert scheme showed in 1876 that the Khedive could pay, as interest and sinking fund, seven per cent. interest on a consolidated debt of £100,000,000. Ismail agreed to pay this at first, but soon resisted, on the ground that the estimate of revenue was erroneous. The French Government then determined to appoint a Commission to investigate the resources of Egypt, which England was induced to join. This Commission reported that as the Khedive had appropriated to himself one-fifth of the land of Egypt,[179] the first thing he should do was to hand a million acres of it over to the creditors of the State.
The Khedive now formed a Ministry under Nubar Pasha, in which Mr. Rivers Wilson, the English Commissioner, was given the Ministry of Finance. The French Government displayed so much jealousy of this step, that Lord Salisbury, yielding to their demands, permitted the Khedive to appoint M. de Blignières as Mr. Wilson’s colleague. This was the beginning of the Dual Control of Egypt by two Governments with opposite interests, from which all subsequent mischief arose. The Khedive soon dismissed Nubar’s Ministry, and then France and England, on the threat of Germany to interfere, arranged with the Sultan to depose Ismail Pasha. He was succeeded by his son Tewfik, in whose Ministry the care of finance was entrusted to M. de Blignières and Mr. Baring, who was afterwards succeeded by Mr. Colvin. The effect of the Dual Control was very simple. It increased the bureaucracy but diminished its efficiency, for wherever an English official was appointed M. de Blignières insisted on planting a French colleague by his side to watch and hamper him. A similar vigilance was exhibited by the English Controller. But above the Dual Ministry of Finance there was established the International Commission of the Public Debt, representing England, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany. This Commission watched over the administration of the Dual Ministry of Finance. It was entitled, if it could agree on a course of action, to demand from the Ministry of Finance more efficient management, and of course it distributed the sum handed over by that Ministry for payment of the public creditors. The French and English Ministers or Controllers of Finance were not removable save by consent of their Governments. They had the right to seats in the Ministerial Council, and to advise on all measures of general importance. As nothing can be done in Egypt without money, nothing could be done without them. At first, Major Baring was the most active of the controllers. But he was removed, and Mr. Colvin, who took his place, played a subordinate part to M. de Blignières, who had more experience and force of character. Virtually De Blignières governed the country. History does not record the occasion on which England as a Great Power occupied a position more ignominious than the one she now held in. Egypt, where her influence had been paramount till Lord Salisbury consented to share it with France. The government of the Dual Control was conducted on simple principles. Egypt was managed not for the Egyptians, but for the bondholders. Everything and everybody were sacrificed for the Budget, and the Budget was constructed primarily with a view to securing the Debt and the payment of the European officials, who swarmed over the land like locusts. At the time when Cyprus was occupied it must now be stated that Lord Salisbury conciliated France, ever
AHMED ARABI PASHA.
(From the Portrait by Frederick Villiers in A. M. Broadley’s “How we Defended Arabi and his Friends.”)
jealous of her Syrian interests, by supporting an extension of her influence in Tunis. Tunis, however, in 1881 had, in spite of protests from England and Italy, become simply a French dependency, and the growing power of Blignières at Cairo forced acute observers to say of Egypt—
“Mutato nomine, de te
Fabula narratur.”