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 the decision of the Commission should be binding upon the mixed Courts. The Commission, consisting of two Englishmen, two Frenchmen, one German, one Austrian, and one Italian, was appointed by a Decree of the same date, and presented its report on 17th April.

A 'Law of Liquidation' in accordance with this report was sanctioned by a Decree of 17th July, 1880, and all the powers interested in the mixed Courts had assented to it before the end of August. By this law, which reduces the interest on the unified debt to 4 per cent., and abolishes the Moukabalah, an International authority is for the first time given to the Caisse.

During the year 1881 the so-called Nationalist party made considerable progress, and the 'Chamber of Delegates,' which had nominally existed since 1866, was opened on 25th December.

In January, 1882, the Chamber claimed, as against the Dual Control, to regulate the Budget. A new ministry came in under Mahmoud Samy, with Arabi as Minister for War. On 8th February the Controllers-general presented a joint note to the Government, and on 12th March M. de Blignières resigned his Controllership. Then came the military plots and counterplots, the massacres of Alexandria, and the suppression of Arabi and his party by Great Britain single-handed; France, under the Freycinet ministry, declining to take part in the work, and Turkey hesitating to accept the British invitation to do so till it was too late. The Conference of Ambassadors, held at Constantinople from June to August, with reference principally to the intervention of Turkey in the campaign, and to the temporary measures which might become necessary for the protection of the Suez Canal, threw but