246 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

materially at the outset by the curtailment of their privileges, the fellaheen did not derive much immediate benefit from the changes under the new reign, /In order to raise the funds required for the administration of the country and for the development of its resources, it was necessary to keep up the taxes at their former level, and a considerable period had to elapse before the fellaheen, over- weighted as they were then by debts contracted with the local moneylenders, began to appreciate that they were any better off than they had been in the days of the Mufettish.

Then, again, under the Dual Control the administration of the country had passed out of native hands into those of foreigners. International Boards, 1 supported by the Commission of the Public Debt \ and by the Anglo-French Controllers, exercised ) an authority independent of, and in many cases superior to, that of the native Government Of all the forms of government devised by human ingenuity, that of Internationalism is the one least calculated to command the sympathy or respect of a subject population, alien in race and creed to their Tulers. The Khedive was at this period too inexperienced and too fearful of the possible return of his father to Egypt, to make any stand against the system of International administration, even if, which is by no means certain, he had the opportunity to do so. The /Egyptians are a people very easily governed ; but they I require to be governed by a visible and tangible j::uler.