Mr. Cave returns to England in a few days, having,
it is re- ported, completed his mission. Clearly, then, his mission had not the object assigned to it in this country. Even if Mr. Cave had been a man with a genius for finance and for getting the better of Orientals, he could not have put Egyptian finance straight in the time he has devoted to it. He might by possibility have succeeded in discovering how matters stood, but we very greatly doubt even that, as Egyptian finance and the Khedive's specu- lations are mixed up together as inextricably as the "revenue accounts" and "trade accounts" of the old East India Company. We suspect, though we do not know, that Mr. Cave insisted on disuniting them ; and that the -Khedive, who, after all, is only "a magnificent and turbaned Turk," refused to permit anything of the kind. If so, the less Englishmen have to do with the Egyptian Treasury or Egyptian loans the better, until the storm which must come has spent itself.
