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I am not mistaken, so I said that this party first demands that the ministry be responsible to that council and that its existence depend on the survival of its majority. Secondly, it demands complete control over the country's finances, as is the case in councils whose members are elected in England and other European countries. If the first demand were made, it would lead to chaos, without exaggeration, because it would stir up intrigues of all kinds and revive the power that had already spread throughout the length and breadth of the country and is still dying a very slow death to this day. It is not unlikely that it would revive the evils of personal government under the guise of free and sovereign councils. If the second demand were made and the council took control of the finances, it would inevitably lead the nation to bankruptcy. Furthermore, anyone who seriously examines these two demands will find them impossible to achieve, no matter how hard they try. What sane person would believe that a country that has suffered for long centuries, whose rulers, from the Qara'a to the Pashas, have subjected it to the harshest injustice and oppression, and whose people are illiterate, with not even 90 percent of men (1) knowing how to read and write nine years ago, and (1) percent of women. If one succeeds even once, their daughter will be able to exercise her inherited rights in a way that benefits her, and those who have no interest in her well-being. This would be the case if it were done. The National Party's declaration is something the country cannot achieve, not now, and perhaps never, if it is as the National Party imagines it today. But whether it is possible or not, I refuse to have any hand in promoting demands or goals whose proponents are foreigners who have very significant interests in Egypt, and who have no love for it, but rather for the ten million or two million Egyptians for whom I have spent the best years of my life promoting their moral and material interests. Someone might say, "Is there no hope if the Egyptian National Union is formed?" I answer that there is no hope in the form that the National Party imagines. However, it is good for every nation, and even for wise statesmen, to set a lofty goal before their eyes and strive to achieve it, even if its achievement is distant. And despite the difficulties and hardships, I will now present the goal I have been thinking about and consider it a better beginning than the National Party's declaration. The goal I present is that Egyptian nationality should encompass all inhabitants. (1) This is according to the census conducted in 1817. As for the current commercial census, I have no doubt that it will show that the number of illiterates has decreased significantly.