WHY ENGLAND IS FIGHTING. 13

There are some who think, in fact, I dare say they are very few who do not think, that the sick man connived at what the rebellious clerk was doing. At all events he made no attempt whatever to put a stop to the uproar. He ought, one would have thought, to have upheld the chief manager at all hazards, and to have helped him to quell the rebellion. But this he did not

do. What was to be done 1 Things could not go on in this way. The interest

on the loans must he paid, and while the shop was in this state this was out

of the question. Nobody in the establishment seemed to have any wits about them except the bold man, and his hand was turned against every one. It would never do to let him go on in this way, for what would become of the right of way through the shop to the warehouse 1 In this extremity the great lady asked a friend—the same merchant in whose employ was that clever clerk who proposed the short-cut—the great lady asked this friend to join her in putting a stop to the rebellion. The friend higgled and haggled a great deal but finally refused. So there was nothing for it but to do it single handed. The other merchants who lived in the neighbourhood did not object; and so it was determined to send some good strong men down at once to take possession of the premises, and to put an end to the doings of the recalcitrant clerk and his followers.

This brings us to The First Shot. This fable needs scarce any explanation. The great lady is Her Majesty Queen Yictoria ; her warehouse is India, the short-cut to which is the Suez

Canal ; the shop is Egypt, with its proprietor the Sultan of Turkey, and its chief clerk the Khedive ; the clever proposer of the short-cut is M. de Lesspps ; his merchant is France ; and the rebellious clerk is Arabi.

I have, perhaps, laid scarcely sufficient stress on the vast mass of corrup¬ tion which existed in the internal administration of Egyptian affairs, for this, it appears to me, is the secret of England’s presence in that country. If Egyptian officials were honest, if they had a keen sense of justice, if they cared more for the well-being of the lower classes than for the filling of their

own pockets, the fertility of the soil and the industry of its tillers would

suffice, not only to pay off the debts with which Egypt is now burdened, but

to bring the country into a high state of commercial efficiency. But as it is, this was the very remotest of all possibilities. It is not saying too much to assert that as little reliance could be placed in the integrity of the highest as in the integrity of the meanest of the dignitaries employed by the govern-

m nt. Bribes were known openly to be the key to all favours. The taxes

were farmed. As long as the requisite sum was paid into the treasury what cared any governor of any province how he obtained the remainder 1 Corrup¬ tion existed in the very heart of administrative affairs. The London Times correspondent tells us that the expenditure in Cairo for one year on stationery