British management, the secrets of which are honesty, exactness, and
light but universal taxation, has completely restored Egyptian finance, destroyed by the wild extrava- gance of Ismail Pasha. Mr. Edwin Palmer reports that the revenue of Egypt for 1891 was nearly £10,900,000, and the expenditure £9,800,000, leaving a surplus of £1,100,000, or more than 10 per cent., equal to an English surplus of £9,000,000. This is in spite of remissions of taxation within the last few years of £800,000 a year. The price of salt, in particular, has been reduced by 40 per cent., and the only increase has been on tobacco. The Government desire greatly to reduce the taxation on poor land ; but the French, as usual, stand in the way, the Law of Liquidation, on which they insist, allowing the Government only to dispose of £300,000 from the surplus, the remainder being heaped up in the bureau of the Debt as a guarantee to bondholders. The result is most creditable to Mr. Palmer and Sir Evelyn Baring, and may bring home to our people some perception of the successful work we are doing in Egypt. If we were to retire now, the whole would be undone ; Egyptian bonds would fall 40 per cent., and the people would again be taxed to their skins for the benefit of Turkish Pashas, for bribes to Constantinople, and for the French showinesses which all the Pashas except Tewfik have considered signs of civilisation.
Previous page
