following. Mehemet Ali survived another eight months, dying on the 2nd of August 1849, aged eighty. He had done a great work in Egypt; the most permanent being the weakening of the tie binding the country to Turkey, the starting of the great cotton industry, the recognition of the advantages of European science, and the conquest of the Sudan. (F. R. C.)
(2) From the Death of Mehemet Ali to the British Occupation.—On
Ibrahim’s death in November 1848 the government of Egypt
fell to his nephew Abbas I. (q.v.), the son of Tusun.
Abbas put an end to the system of commercial monopolies,
and during his reign the railway from Alexandria
Abbas I. and
Said Pasha.
to Cairo was begun at the instigation of the British
government. Opposed to European ways, Abbas lived in great
seclusion, and after a reign of less than six years he was murdered
(July 1854) by two of his slaves. He was succeeded by his uncle
Said Pasha, the favourite son of Mehemet Ali, who lacked the
strength of mind or physical health needed to execute the
beneficent projects which he conceived. His endeavour, for
instance, to put a stop to the slave raiding which devastated the
Sudan provinces was wholly ineffectual. He had a genuine
regard for the welfare of the fellahin, and a land law of 1858
secured to them an acknowledgment of freehold as against the
crown. The pasha was much under French influence, and in
1856 was induced to grant to Ferdinand de Lesseps a concession
for the construction of the Suez Canal. Lord Palmerston was
opposed to this project, and the British opposition delayed the
ratification of the concession by the Porte for two years. To
the British Said also made concessions—one to the Eastern
Telegraph Company, and another (1854) allowing the establishment
of the Bank of Egypt. He also began the national debt
by borrowing £3,293,000 from Messrs Frühling & Göschen,
the actual amount received by the pasha being £2,640,000. In
January 1863 Said Pasha died and was succeeded by his nephew
Ismail, a son of Ibrahim Pasha.
The reign of Ismail (q.v.), from 1863 to 1879, was for a while hailed as introducing a new era into modern Egypt. In spite of his vast schemes of reform and the éclat of his Europeanizing innovations, his oriental extravagance led to bankruptcy, and his reign is historically important Ismail’s megalomania. simply for its compelling European intervention in the internal affairs of Egypt. Yet in its earlier years much was done which seemed likely to give Ismail a more important place in history. In 1866 he was granted by the sultan a firman—obtained on condition of the increase of the tribute from £376,000 to £720,000—by which the succession to the throne of Egypt was made to descend “to the eldest of thy male children and in the same manner to the eldest sons of thy successors,” instead of, after Turkish law, to the eldest male of the family. In the following year another firman bestowed upon him the title of khedive in lieu of that of vali, borne by Mehemet Ali and his immediate successors. In 1873 a further firman placed the khedive in many respects in the position of an independent sovereign. Ismail re-established and improved the administrative system organized by Mehemet Ali, and which had fallen into decay under Abbas’s indolent rule; he caused a thorough remodelling of the customs system, which was in an anarchic state, to be made by English officials; in 1865 he established the Egyptian post office; he reorganized the military schools of his grandfather, and gave some support to the cause of education. Railways, telegraphs, lighthouses, the harbour works at Suez, the breakwater at Alexandria, were carried out by some of the best contractors of Europe. Most important of all, the Suez Canal was opened in 1869. But the funds required for these public works, as well as the actual labour, were remorselessly extorted from a poverty-stricken population.
A striking picture of the condition of the people at this period is given by Lady Duff Gordon in Last Letters from Egypt. Writing in 1867 she said: “I cannot describe the misery here now—every day some new tax. Every beast, camel, cow, sheep, donkey and horse is made to pay. The fellaheen can no longer eat bread; they are living on barley-meal mixed with water, and raw green stuff, vetches, &c. The taxation makes life almost impossible: a tax on every crop, on every animal first, and again when it is sold in the market; on every man, on charcoal, on butter, on salt.... The people in Upper Egypt are running away by wholesale, utterly unable to pay the new taxes and do the work exacted. Even here (Cairo) the beating for the year’s taxes is awful.”
In the years that followed the condition of things grew worse. Thousands of lives were lost and large sums expended in extending Ismail’s dominions in the Sudan (q.v.) and in futile conflicts with Abyssinia. In 1875 the impoverishment of the fellah had reached such a Steps leading to the deposition of Ismail. point that the ordinary resources of the country no longer sufficed for the most urgent necessities of administration; and the khedive Ismail, having repeatedly broken faith with his creditors, could not raise any more loans on the European market. The taxes were habitually collected many months in advance, and the colossal floating debt was increasing rapidly. In these circumstances Ismail had to realize his remaining assets, and among them sold 176,602 Suez Canal shares to the British government for £3,976,582[1] (see Beaconsfield). This comparatively small financial operation brought about the long-delayed crisis and paved the way for the future prosperity of Egypt, for it induced the British government to inquire more carefully into the financial condition of the country. In December 1875 Mr Stephen Cave, M.P., and Colonel (afterwards Sir John) Stokes, R.E., were sent to Egypt to inquire into the financial situation; and Mr Cave’s report, made public in April 1876, showed that under the existing administration national bankruptcy was inevitable. Other commissions of inquiry followed, and each one brought Ismail more under European control. The establishment of the Mixed Tribunals in 1876, in place of the system of consular jurisdiction in civil actions, made some of the courts of justice international. The Caisse de la Dette, instituted in May 1876 as a result of the Cave mission, led to international control over a large portion of the revenue. Next came (in November 1876) the mission of Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen and M. Joubert on behalf of the British and French bondholders, one result being the establishment of Dual Control, i.e. an English official to superintend the revenue and a French official the expenditure of the country. Another result was the internationalization of the railways and the port of Alexandria. Then came (May 1878) a commission of inquiry of which the principal members were Sir Rivers Wilson, Major Evelyn Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer) and MM. Kremer-Baravelli and de Blignières. One result of that inquiry was the extension of international control to the enormous landed property of the khedive. Driven to desperation, Ismail made a virtue of necessity and accepted, in September 1878, in lieu of the Dual Control, a constitutional ministry, under the presidency of Nubar Pasha (q.v.), with Rivers Wilson as minister of finance and de Blignières as minister of public works. Professing to be quite satisfied with this arrangement, he pompously announced that Egypt was no longer in Africa, but a part of Europe; but before seven months had passed he found his constitutional position intolerable, got rid of his irksome cabinet by means of a secretly-organized military riot in Cairo, and reverted to his old autocratic methods of government. England and France could hardly sit still under this affront, and decided to administer chastisement by the hand of the suzerain power, which was delighted to have an opportunity of asserting its authority. On the 26th of June 1879 Ismail suddenly received from the sultan a curt telegram, addressed to him as ex-khedive of Egypt, informing him that his son Tewfik was appointed his successor. Taken unawares, he made no attempt at resistance, and Tewfik was at once proclaimed khedive.
After a short period of inaction, when it seemed as if the change might be for the worse, England and France summoned up courage to look the situation boldly in the face, and, in November 1879, re-established the Dual Control in the persons of Major Baring and M. de Blignières. For two years the Dual Control governed Egypt, and initiated the work of progress
- ↑ Part of this money was devoted to an expedition sent against Abyssinia in 1876 to avenge losses sustained in the previous year. The new campaign was, however, equally unsuccessful.
