i 3 tion from which the country has been suffering ever since the crisis of 1907. Moreover, the Agricultural Bank returns indicate that the effects of this long-continued depression are reaching the smaller cultivator, and some difficulty is being experienced in recovering the Bank’s advances. That the effects of the crisis have not yet passed away is further proved by the fact that imports again showed a falling off, though this was in pf'rt due to a fall in price of many of the principal articles of consumption. The revenue also has suffered, especially under those heads which depend directly on the available resources of the public, namely, import duties and railway receipts. The former showed a reduction of £E. 183,000 on the preceding year, and the latter of 175,000. All these factors show that patience is necessary before the country can be said to have completely regained its former prosperit}’. At the same time, I do not consider that, so long as agriculture prospers, there is cause for serious anxiety. A careful investigation is proceeding into the causes of the failure of last year’s cotton crop, and I do not doubt that remedies are to be found for most of the evils which affect the cultivation of cotton in Egypt. All agricultural countries are liable to violent fluctuations in their crops, and there seems no reason to suppose that the results of last year need be considered in any way significant of what the future will bring forth.

In April of last year much interest was aroused by the discovery of petroleum at Has Jemsah, a point on the Bed Sea coast about IGO miles south of Suez, in the district known as the Bed Sea Oilfields, where on several former occasions boring for oil had been unsuccessfully tried. For over a year a private company had been engaged in boring operations at this spot under a prospecting licence granted by the Egyptian Government. From the first borehole put down, a flow of oil under higli pressure was obtained at a depth of about 1,290 feet, and the well was successfully capped without accident. A second flow of oil was encountered in September last, at a depth of 1,060 feet, in a boring commenced in March 1908 at a point about 150 yards north-west of the first. This well was also successfully capped. The analyses of the oil have given good results, and exploratory work to determine the extent and position of the oil-bearing territory is proceeding. Other companies are now actively prospecting in the neighbourhood, and a survey, both topographical and geological, of the area is being made by the Survey Department. In several other localities which are considered favourable, or which show indications of the presence of oil, preliminary operations and boring have been commenced.

Throughout the past year long and laborious negotiations were proceeding between the Egyptian Government and the Suez Canal Company in respect of a proposal put forward by the latter for the extension of its concession. A draft project was finally drawn up and laid before the Council of Ministers last autumn. The main lines of the arrangement were that the concession was to be prolonged for forty years from 1968, the date when the existing concession comes to an end, and that during such further period the pi'ofits of the undertaking were to be equally divided between the Government and the company. I’he half-share of the profits during the extended period which the company would acquire was to be paid for partly by a lump sum of £E. 4,000,000, and partly by a gradually increasing share in the profits from 1921 to 1968. The calculation upon which the amount of compensation has been based contains, no doubt, a considerable speculative element, inasmuch as it depends upon the uncertain factor of the rate of increase of future profits, but the arrangement is, in the opinion of those best competent to judge, a satisfactory bargain from the Egyptian ])oint of view. After much discussion and thorough consider.ation of the various points involved, the Ministers unanimously arrived at the conclusion that, if certain amendments, which did not alter the main lines of the project, were accepted by the company, the proposed arrangement was undoubtedly advantageous to Egypt. At the same time, they decided, in my opinion quite rightly, that, although the question was not one of those upon which the Government were obliged, by the terms of the Organic Law, to consult the General Assembly, they would not, in view of its exceptional importance to the present and future generations, come to a definite decision without first ascertaining whether th( General Assembly were favourable to the extension of the concession. The Assembly was convoked for this purpose-at the commencement of last February, and it appointed a committee from amongst its members to consider the scheme. The report of that committee has just been ])resented, and it concludes by recommending the rejection of the proposal. Neither the tone of this document nor the arguments adduced in support of its conclusion can be said to have justified the hope that the scheme would be examined with an open mind, and the chief feature by which the report is characterized is entire lack of confidence in the intentions and good faith House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online. Copyright (c) 2006 ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.