THE CAVE MISSION. 133 and other large financial establishments in Paris were reported to hold colossal amounts of these securities ; and it was commonly imagined that the French" Government could not afford to run the risk of the panic which must ensue from any repudiation by Egypt of her foreign liabilities. The third Republic was then far less firmly established than it became at a later period ; and any catastrophe which excited popular indignation in the then temper of the French nation might conceivably have led to a monarchical restoration. It was, however, obvious, that if France consented to save Egypt from bankruptcy, the requisite advances could only be made subject to some arrangement under which the financial administration of Egypt would virtually be placed under French officials ; and as in Egypt finance and politics are synonymous terms, it followed that if France financed Egypt, she would 7 also become the paramount Power in Egyptian politics, f Now, this was exactly the contingency which England, I under the Disraeli administration of 1875, was anxious/' to avert. Colonel Stanton, our Consul-General, was fully aware of the negotiations going on between Cairo and Paris, and kept our Foreign Office acquainted with what was taking place. I do not profess to have any personal knowledge of the inner history of the Cave Mission. I happen to know, however, the first origin of this abortive mission, which may not unfitly be described as a story without an end. In 1875, some months before our purchase of the Suez Canal shares, the then Prince of Wales passed through