EGYPT AND HER FRIENDS.
EGYPT is suffering from a superfluity of friends. She has been, and is still, sick ; and sympathisers from all parts of Europe press forward to offer their advice. The compassion would be exceeding consolatory, and even the advice might be more welcome than advice usually is, but when each adviser insists that the patient shall accept from his hands exactly the same potion he has already drunk at the recom- mendation of another bystander, a feeling of satiety is likely to be induced. Egyptian finances have long been utterly disordered, and the Khedive appointed a Commission to detect the root of the evil. An Englishman was one of the Commissioners, and by universal consent had a main part in drawing
up the Report. The Khedive accepted the conclusions of the Report, and naturally requested its chief author to assist in realising them. Not a single murmur was raised in any country of the earth at this arrangement. The Porte itself was not sufficiently lost in selfishness to refuse to a ruined satrapy its one chance of recovery. France has an enormous stake in the country, and rejoiced at this hope of payment of debts due to Frenchmen. Italy has not much invested in Egyptian Securities, but she has the brains and energies of many of her sons invested in an Egyptian future. Bonds of the Unified Debt, and all other Egyptian Securities, rose in value on every European Bourse at the news. An Englishman's em- ployment as financier was the greatest boon which could be bestowed on Egypt, and therefore, in exactly the same proportion, it was the greatest benefit which could possibly have been con- ferred on every foreign interest within the Khedive's jurisdiction.
In the midst of all this universal acclamation at the advent of an honest and trained financier, a sudden murmur is heard. M. Waddington announces his faith in Mr. Rivers Wilson's abilities, but has found out, apparently after careful think- ing, that he is an Englishman. Count Corti has made
the same alarming discovery. Mr. Rivers Wilson is an accomplished economist and administrator, but what has rendered him trusted is the very fact of his English nationality. Egyptian finances wanted precisely the finan- cial qualities which an Englishman's education is likely to have imparted. It is no accident that the foreign Chan- cellor of the Exchequer chosen by the Khedive, or rather by his Prime Minister, happens to be an Englishman. That was essential for the confidence he had to attract. But because he is an Englishman, France and Italy claim to lend to the Egyptian Cabinet an Italian and a French Minister, with the very same measured amount of power which has been entrusted to Mr. Wilson. Neither France nor Italy pretends that Egypt would be the better intrinsically for a French Minister of Public Wotks, or for an Italian Minister of Education, but Italy declares that she ought to be taken into consideration in the arrangements that are to be made, as she has many interests to protect in Egypt. and what _Italy demands querulously, France demands with a menace. If Nubar Pasha will not grant his French colleague the same amount, by weight, of prerogative as he has already granted to his English Minister of Finance, M. Waddington knows what he will do. Egyptian finances are in the condition of a confirmed drunkard, who must have stimulants administered to save his life. They cannot begin to recover until a new loan has been raised, to discharge the most clamorous liabilities, and M. Waddington will countenance no co-operation of French bankers in this loan, unless his stipulations in favour of the French Minister of Public Works have been first complied with. State sympathy with financial operations is of more importance in Paris than in London. France has not got beyond Lord Pal- merston's stage of foreign policy, when a bad debt was recovered by an armed squadron. Every Frenchman who bought stock in a Franco-Egyptian loan expects to have some sort of State guarantee for principal and interest. This M. Waddington is supposed to have refused, if certain very substantial sources of public revenue, on which Mr. Rivers Wilson relies, should not be handed over for administration by the Public Works Department. For the present, the difficulty is believed to have been surmounted by the conciliatory attitude of England. But difficulties of this kind are of a nature to recur. Should future concessions not be made, M. Waddington may resume his intention to commit "the happy despatch." He is rumoured to have threatened, if thwarted about Egypt, to re- sign his post of French Foreign Minister, and to let M Gambetta afflict English funds and Egyptian funds, by nomi- nating a firebrand for his successor.
Mr. Rivers Wilson's course is clear. He can effect no good for-Egypt, unless he have the fullest powers over the Egyptian revenue. Finances and public works in some matters occupy common ground. It is the business of a Minister of Public Works to keep the State railways in working-order, and to develop them, so far as he may, but the receipts from them belong to the Finance Minister. Any one who takes charge of them, takes them simply in trust for the Exchequer. Under the financial administration hitherto, the official entrusted with particular works has been permitted to regard the ex- penditure required by the works as a first charge on the revenue accruing from them, and only the surplus has been paid over into the Treasury ; but if the new Administration is to be worth anything, a Minister who desires to spend must first persuade the Finance Minister to find ways and means. He must arrogate no title to find them for himself. This is a first condition of the-Ministerial solidarity, without which Egyptian Ministerial reform will be a delusion. Mr. Rivers Wilson, if he surrender his monopoly of the right to raise or refuse to raise revenue for particular purposes of the Government, might as well have remained at home. Diplomatic pressure might be brought to bear on Mr. Wilson by the French Cabinet through the English Cabinet, but the course of the English Cabinet is equally plain with that of Mr. Rivers Wilson. It must refuse to interfere, in this respect, with the discretion of the Egyptian Ministry. The Egyptian Ministry, on its part, must consult not French or Italian interests, but those of Egypt. Looked at from this point of view, the proper answer to the requisition for an equal balance of French, Italian, and English interests is obvious. Egyptian interests imperatively pronounce against the balance of international influence which Con- tinental notions seem to consider a law of nature in re- gard to Egypt. Whatever the nation which is to do it, one nation only, to work Egypt any substantial good, ought to infuse its official spirit undisturbed throughout the country. An Italian colour in the Egyptian Administration would be far preferable to a mixed Italian, English, and French colour. The weakest point, however, in Egyptian policy is finance. The only physician who can strengthen that, it is acknowledged, must be an Englishman. Every foreigner knows this, and that English influence could not be, and ought not to be, ejected from Egypt. If the object of the Franco-Egyptian and Italo- Egyptian negotiations, of which the air has been full for the last ten days, were to substitute a Ministry pervaded by French or Italian principles of administration for a Ministry supposed to be inspired by English principles, their authors would be excus- able, for their attempts would be entirely compatible with a desire to improve the condition of Egypt. But they do not pretend, even to the Khedive, that this is their object. Their real claim to an equal share in what they .rnis- represent as an international administration is simply that Egypt is a carcase, and that every eagle has the same title to rend it. The intrigues against the new Egyptian financial administration will not succeed in ousting the Englishman who is a member of it. If they had any chance of accom- plishing this, or any other material result, the catastrophe would, at any rate, have one effect. It would relegate to remote futurity the chance of obtaining full payment( for Egyptian Bonds. That can scarcely be the object of either French or Italian creditors. National vanity, and the ambition of flaunting the French or Italian flag on the Pyramids, are doubtless very comforting to patriots, though we scarcely think the gratification of those feelings would console for a considerable deficiency in dividends ; but a coach which has three drivers, each insisting on following his own course, cannot be expected to secure many fares. For ourselves, we should sincerely rejoice if France and Italy would set themselves the task of reforming the administration of some other provinces of the Ottoman Empire as richly endowed by nature and as cruelly outraged by man as has been the land of the Pharaohs. With Egypt the less they interfere the better.
Previous page
