Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/548

 444 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. defray the costs of the British military occupation, although to meet these heavy charges it has also been found necessary to draw upon the revenues of the home country. The conveyance of the Queen's troops to Sudan, including provisions and supplies of all sorts, has been estimated to amount to at least £1,000 per head. In spite of the official budgets, which at the beginning of each financial year show a balance in favour of the treasury, the Government has for some time been hopelessly drifting to a state of absolute bankruptcy. In fact, payments would have been already suspended but for the loan of £8,000,000 sanctioned by the British Parliament and guaranteed by the European powers in the year 1885. The lowest rate of interest on the advance made by foreign bankers and capitalists since 1870 is 12 1 per cent. ; but numerous debts have been contracted at even double that heavy rate of interest.* Thus it has come to pass that within the short space of ten years the Egyptian people, who still supposed their masters to be the wealthiest in the world, found themselves saddled with a debt of nearly £120,000,000, or in the pro- portion of over £80 per family. The Egyptian army, composed of about 3,000 men, or scarcely more than one- fifth of its former strength, has been reduced to the position of a mere police force, and the question of its complete suppression has even been discussed. Meanwhile the conscription, without being officially abolished, has fallen into abeyance. All the military service is now being performed by the British troops, which towards the end of the year 1884 numbered over 13,500 men, and which in the spring of the next year had been raised to a total effective strength of nearly 25,000 for the whole of Egypt and the Sudan. Special constables have even been introduced from England, while the local constabulary is completely under the control of the British authorities. The fleet comprises officially about a dozen steamers, manned by perhaps 2,000 hands. Future Prospects. Certainly the Egyptian people would not be justified in placing too much reliance on the promises held out to it of political independence. Although, like most other modern nations, it has also its constitution drawn up in a charter of forty-nine articles, it elects no representatives, nor is it consulted in any way on political matters. The Assembly of Delegates, which was annually convoked under the government of Ismail in order to take into consideration the financial situation of the current year, has ceased to meet as a deliberative body. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the national sentiment is being gradually but steadily developed in Egypt, although the country has forcibly become an integral part of the European world, and although the European powers are continually interfering more and more in its internal affairs. At the same time these very powers will have henceforth to reckon not only with the European element settled in the Nile • MacCoan, " Egypt na it is."