240 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

• single member took his seat on the Ministerial benches. The President thereupon, after stating in general terms the measures he proposed to submit to the Council, requested the members to make any comment or criticism they might deem desirable on the decrees he recommended to their consideration, as otherwise it would be impossible to keep up the semblance of a parliamentary debate. But, again, no deputy could be found audacious enough to even suggest the possibility that the Government might be in the wrong. Of course, with a body so constituted, the unanimous approval of the decree confiscating Ismail Pasha Sadyk's property was a foregone conclusion. The decree was then sanctioned by the Privy Council, whose members, though men of higher position and character than the Council of Notables, were almost equally subservient to the will of the ruler; and was finally signed by the then Khedive. Soon after the deposition of Ismail Pasha, the executor of Ismail Sadyk's will brought a claim against the Government for ;50o,ooo, the property of his wards, which, as he alleged, had been wrongfully confiscated. This claim was one of the demands submitted to the Commission of Liquidation. The Mufettish's estate was found, after his death, to be burdened with heavy debts, chiefly incurred in the disastrous Stock Exchange operations in which he had been latterly involved, whether on his own account or on joint account with other parties. When the Mufettish's creditors discovered that objections