SECOND STAGE OF INTERVENTION. 177 might best be met without investigating the real causes of her financial embarrassments. In order to effect this object, he relied upon the active support of M. de Lesseps, the President of the Commission, and on Riaz Pasha, then Minister of Commerce, who was chosen by his Highness as the representative of the Egyptian Government. The reliance, however, was misplaced. Financial controversies were matters for which M. de Lesseps had no aptitude, and as soon as he had satisfied himself that the arrangements between Egypt and the Suez Canal Company were, by tacit consent, to be excluded from the scope of the inquiry, and that any attempt on his part to confine the subject matter under discussion to the general financial situation of Egypt must prove ineffective, he ceased to attend the meetings of the Commission, and took no further part in its deliberations. Riaz Pasha, who, later on, played a prominent part in Egyptian history, was a very honest man, a devout believer in Islam, and a person of considerable, though narrow, intelligence. His conception of his duty was that he was bound to carry out the instructions of his Sovereign, so long as these instructions were compatible with loyalty to his colleagues. In consequence, he did his utmost to resist any extension of the inquiry beyond the limits laid down by the . Khedive, and thereby succeeded in protracting the discussions which preceded the publication of the report. More than this was beyond his power.

The Khedive soon discovered that his belief in* N