Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1462

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TURKfiY AND TRIBUTARY STATES: — EGYPT

a liuiuber of representative institutions, including a Legislative Council, a General Assembly, and provincial boards. The Legislative Council is a con- sultative body, consisting of 30 members, of whom 14 are nominated by the Goveinment. It meets once a month and examines the budget and all pro- posed administrative laws, but it cannot initiate legislation and the Govern- ment is not obliged to act on its advice. Of its members, 15 residing in Cairo receive an allowance of 90/. a year for carriage expenses, and 15, being delegates from the provinces and provincial towns, receive 250Z. a year for residential expenses in Cairo, besides travelling expenses to and from Cairo once a month. The General Assembly, which consists of the members of the Legislative Council with the addition of the 6 ministers and 46 members popularly elected, has no legislative functions, but no new direct personal or land tax can be imposed without its consent. It has to be summoned at least once every two years. The members, when convoked, receive an eight days' allowance at II. a, day, with railway expenses. The council of ministers with the Khedive is the ultimate legislative authority. Since 1887 an Ottoman High Commissioner has resided in Cairo.

Egy})t Proper is administratively divided into 6 governorships (moafzas) of princi[)al towns, and 14 mudiriehs, or provinces, subdivided into districts or kisms.

Govenwrsliips.

1. Cairo.

2. Alexandria.

3. Damietta.

4. Suez Canal, with the towns

of Tort Said and Ismai- lieh.

5. Suez and Sinai peninsula.

6. El Arish.

Mudiriehs.

Lower Egypt: — Upper Egypt: — 1. Kalioubieh. 1. Guizeh.

2.

JMenoutieh.

2.

Minieh.

3!

Gharbieh.

l».

Beni Souel,

4.

Charkieh.

4.

Fayoum.

5.

Dakahlieh.

5.

Assiout.

(5.

lichera.

6.

Guerga.

7.

Kena.

8.

Nubia

Area and Population.

The total area of Kgypt proper, incdudiiig the Oases in the l^ibyan Desert, the region between the Nile and the Reel Sea, and El-Ai'ish in Syria, but exeluding the Sudan, is about 400,000 square miles; but the cultivated and settled area, that is, the Nile Valley and Delta, covers only 12,976 square miles. Canajs, roads, date plantations, Arc, cover 1,900 square miles; 2,850 square miles are comprised in the surface of the Nile, marshes, lakes, and desert. Kgypt is divided into two great districts —
 * Masr-el-Bahri,' or Lower Egypt, and * Kl-Said,' or Upper Egypt.

The following table gives the area of the settled land surface, and the results of the census of June, 1897: —