to be sold to confederates of the tax-collectors. Forced sales had also to be made of growing crops, or money had to be borrowed from the village usurers at exorbitant interest, the speedy result of which was ruin to the borrower. Meanwhile Ismail Pasha rather enjoyed the rôle of "sovereign in sequestration." He had so far saved his enormous private estates, purchased to a large extent with public money, and a good deal of it the money of the bondholders. He had likewise reserved to himself perfect freedom of expenditure, both public and private. So long as the coupons were met, and the sinking funds maintained, he was free to do as he pleased with the surplus revenue. Asserting this right, he refused resolutely to submit to any control over his expenditure. However much the Comptrollers may have pitied the sufferings of the fellaheen, they could do nothing to alleviate them. They could only receive the taxes as they were collected. They had no power to check abuses of collection, or to prevent the Khedive incurring new debt, or to force the Government to attempt any reform. Their position in the country was from first to last invidious and unfortunate. The exactions which their thankless office imposed on them were enough to make them hateful to the people; but when, in addition, they had to be the scapegoats of all the malpractices of native officials, the situation soon became intolerable. Their first attempt at a remedy, the introduction of Europeans into the civil service, brought the disease rapidly to a crisis. Foreign officials were imported far too freely, and, in the circumstances of the country, were extravagantly paid, furnishing another and fatal handle against the Control. The Commissioners and their staffs represented a cost to the country of over £30,000 a-year. Within twelve months it was discovered that "the old leaven of useless and corrupt officials" would have to be weeded out. Two hundred natives were accordingly displaced, and about two hundred more Europeans brought in, raising the foreign salary list by £60,000 a-year.
This was one of the proximate causes of the anti-foreign agitation which, skilfully fostered by Arabi Pasha, developed into the national movement of 1882. It played effectually into the adroit hands of Ismail Pasha, and enabled him to pose before his people as their champion against foreign oppression. The time arrived when the Comptrollers had to put their foot down, and come to a clear understanding with the Khedive. In their capacity of trustees, they had to charge him, in the language of the Bankruptcy Court, with concealment of property. They also claimed supervision of his expenditure; and on both points he obstinately resisted them. He played for a high stake, and though he played boldly as well as cleverly, he lost.
Ismail's scheme was virtually to bring the administration of the country to a standstill, in order to force the Comptrollers to release their hold on the bondholders' money, and prepare the way for a proposal to reduce the interest on the debt. His private debts and the domestic debts of the State were being sued for daily in the international courts, and executions were being put into the Khedival palace itself. The Comptrollers' reply to his protests that the coupons could not be paid without ruining the country was, that he should render an account of the enormous private estates he still retained, and which had been largely acquired with public money. They insisted on his appointing a commission with full
