FIRST STAGE OF INTERVENTION Proposal to establish a State bank — Nubar quits Egypt for Europe — Ismail arbitrarily consolidates State Debts and fixes rate of interest — His Highness proposes appointment of an International Commission of the Public Debt — Bondholders demand further investigation before approving the proposal — Messrs. Goschen and Joubert selected to conduct investigation — Goschen -Joubert report — Arrest and death of the Mufettish.

The failure of the hopes based on the prospect of British intervention rendered repudiation inevitable. I should doubt, however, whether Ismail at this period had yet become seriously alarmed at the outlook of affairs. Up to a very short period before the publication of the report, he had been sanguine as to the possibility of escaping, or, at all events, of postponing, any financial crisis. During the period of the Cave Mission, Cairo was crowded with foreign visitors, who represented, or claimed to represent, groups of European financiers. Neither the agents nor their principals stood in the front ranks of International finance. They were all confident of their power to raise any amount of money that might be required to put Egypt, financially speaking, on her legs, provided always Ismail Pasha could offer such guarantees as, whether satisfactory or unsatisfactory in themselves, would induce European investors to subscribe to the