SECOND STAGE OF INTERVENTION. 179 as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, went out of his way to state that " he does not think it necessary to express any official opinion on Mr. Wilson's appointment" Again, Major Baring, then a comparatively unknown man, had had considerable experience both as an officer in India — as one of the Commissioners employed in the delimitation of the Turkish frontiers after the Servian war — and as British member of the Public Debt Commission in Egypt.

He possessed, moreover, by heredity, the financial ability for which the name of Baring had so long been an household word throughout the civilized world. He owed his appointment, if I am rightly informed, to the recommendation of the late Sir Lewis Mallet, who had formed a very high opinion of his ability in India. While the Commission was sitting, Nubar Pasha had interviews with M. Waddington in Paris and Lord Salisbury in London. They both, as he stated, advised him to use his influence to get the demand for the restitution of the Khedive's lands reduced to a comparatively small amount, as they were informed by their Consular agents in Egypt that nothing would ever induce the Khedive to surrender the whole of his estates, though he might be persuaded to disgorge a substantial amount. Nubar demurred to this advice, on the ground that though a partial restitution might benefit the bondholders, yet that Egypt could never recover from her embarrassments so long as the Khedive remained the