The long-postponed debate on Mr. Cave's Mission to Egypt came
off on Saturday, the occasion being the vote of 12,000 for Mr. Cave's expenses. Mr. Cave defended himself, maintaining the substantial accuracy of his Report, though admitting that he obtained his figures at second-hand from Arab officials ; and elesdribed the Khedive as an active, painstaking ruler, who tried to do too much himself, and was easily beguiled into large speculations by people who wish to plunder him. Nothing in Egypt is ever repaired, nor does any one ever finish another's work. Mr. Cave's one panacea for the financial condition of the country was, that the collection and distribution of the revenue should be entrusted to highly-trained European officials, who should be virtu- ally independent, which the European Committee of Control now existing is not. This is to say, in other words, that the govern- ment of the country shall be entrusted to European hands, an arrangement to which the Khedive is not likely to submit. He may think it a lighter evil, both to his dynasty and to Islam, that English bondholders should go without their money.
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