- 14 -- A place, if I am not mistaken, if the ministry is to be responsible to that council and its existence depends on the majority remaining with it, and secondly, that the council should have complete control over the country's finances, as is the case in councils whose members are elected in England and in other European countries. If the first demand were made, it would lead to chaos, without exaggeration, no, and it would lead to intrigues of all kinds and restore power to bribery, which had spread throughout the length and breadth of the country and is still dying a very slow death to this day. It would not restore the worst evils of personal government under the guise of revolutionary Syrian councils. And if the second demand were made and the council took over the supervision of finances, it would inevitably lead the nation to bankruptcy. Moreover, anyone who intends to seriously examine these two demands cannot do so without great effort. What sane person would believe that a country that has spent long centuries with its rulers from the Qara'a to the Pashas subjecting it to the harshest injustice and worst rule, and the majority of whom were illiterate, with less than 9.40 percent of men and 3.40 percent of women knowing how to read and write nine years ago (1) – would suddenly become capable of exercising its rights of exploitation in a beneficial way for itself and for those who have an interest in its welfare. This is precisely the situation. The program of the National Party is something the country cannot comprehend, not now, and perhaps not for a long time if it is as that National Party envisions it. But whether it is possible or not, I refuse to have a hand in promoting demands or establishing them, which would be a blatant injustice to foreigners who have very great interests in Egypt, and not only to foreigners, but to them and to the ten or twelve million Egyptians whose lives I have spent advocating for their religious and material well-being. Someone might say, is there no hope if the Egyptian national cause prevails? I would answer that there is no hope for it in the form envisioned by the National Party. But every nation, and indeed rational politicians, can set a distant goal for themselves and strive to achieve it, even if its achievement is far off and fraught with difficulties and troubles. Therefore, I propose a goal that I have always held and that is most fitting to replace the National Party's program. And the finance that I propose is that the Egyptian treasury be comprehensive for all inhabitants. (1) This is as stated in the last census of 1897, and the current commercial census is undoubtedly