76 Death Rate.

The high death rate prevailing during the war has fallen rapidly during 1919.

. 47. Municipalities and Local Commissions.

Municipal enterprise, which was entering upon a sphere of considerable activity in 1914, had necessarily to be curtailed during the war. Apart from the desire of the Ministry of Finance to reduce expenditure, the lack of building materials and the scarcity of labour precluded the putting into execution of the various large schemes at that time in contemplation.

Nevertheless, important drainage works at Port Said were continued and completed during the war, and a great improvement has thus been ell'ected in the sanitation of that town.

The electrical installation at Damietta was completed early in 1915, and that at Daraanhour is on the road to completion, while street lighting by petroleum and benzine lamps has been considerably improved in the smaller provincial towns. In the matter of provincial water supplies a certain amount of progress has been possible, and the macadamising of streets has been proceeded with to a limited extent.

The work of the “ Tanz.im Service ” in the municipal towns has not been mueh interfered with by the war; it is mainly occupied in improving street alignments, opening streets by expropriation, in the exchange of land and the cleaning and embellishment of towns.

Despite the depletion of its technical staff by mobilisation, the inspection by the municipalities department of the general municipal engineering work in the provincial towns continued, though it was necessarily curtailed.

In the current financial year the Ministry of the Interior proposes to spend £E. 130,000 on installing light and filtered water in various places, in beginning the drainage of Suez and Mansura, and on other works of a municipal character; £E. 115,000 of this sum is expected eventually to be recovered from the municipalities themselves. In addition to the above works numerous improvements are being undertaken by the municipalities themselves at their own cost. Furthermore, in view of the acute need of improved supplies of drinking water, the Ministry of the Interior is asking for a credit of £1,000,000 to be devoted to this object.

The number of mixed municipalities has remained stationary at thirteen since 1914. Local commissions on the other hand iiave increased from thirty-five to forty-four, and whereas in 1914 there were only seven towns possessing local commissions in which the inhabitants had agreed to contribute towards town improvements, there are now only nine where the inhabitants do not so contribute. The contributions usually take the form of an addition to the house tax or an octroi duty.

■In 1918 a new form of municipal institution was created under the name of “Village Council,’’ the principal feature of which is that almost all the municipal expenditure is paid for by the inhabitants themselves. Before authority is granted for the constitution of a village council the inhabitants are required to furnisli sufficient proof of their real desire for a council, of their ability to subscribe in advance £E. 500 for capital expenditure, and of their willingness to pay certain taxes. Village councils which show activity and a capacity for successful administration are, after a period of probation, transformed into local commissions and granted Government subventions. Three such transformations took place in 1919 and there are now nine village councils in existence.

It may be recalled that the first municipality in Egypt was established in the year 1890 at Alexandria, and that in 1893 municipal bodies were created in nine other towns. The situation of these bodies was at first very precarious; the population was universally hostile to their creation, and the Government constantly received petitions from different parts of the country begging that municipal bodies should not be set up there. Public opinion in this matter has undergone a complete change, and the Government is now being pressed on all sides for the creation of municipal bodies. The transformation effected in the aspect and sanitary condition of the towns where municipal bodies have been established is remarkable. The State subsidy, wLich* formerly composed the whole, now forms but a part (and that a small one) of the municipal Budget.

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