238 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

railways, the Domain lands, the Daira estates, and to a lesser extent the five provinces, whose revenues were pledged to the service of the Public Debt, were, and are, administered by boards composed of English and French nominees, who owe no duty to the Government of the country beyond that of seeing that the interest of the debt is duly forthcoming. In one important respect, this system of International administration has been modified, as I shall soon have to relate. But even under the British occupation, which has now lasted for twenty years, Egypt is still governed in the most important departments of her administration by a number of International Boards, whose jurisdiction is ratified by the Law of Liquidation, the financial Magna Charta of Egypt. For this state of things, the Commission is not to blame. Their functions were confined to establishing a modus Vivendi between Egypt and her creditors, and they had not the power, even if they had the wish, to relieve Egypt from the obvious evils of government by Syndicate.

It is utterly impossible in a narrative of this kind to deal with the various questions upon which the Commission had to adjudicate. Some notion, however of the complexity of these questions may be gathered by reading the issues presented to their consideration in one single case, which I have selected mainly because it is connected with the story of Ismail Pasha Sadyk. At the time of his death, whenever and wherever it may have occurred, the Mufettish left a