THE CHAMBER OF NOTABLES. 267 extension in the direction of Egypt No doubo / the Franco-Gennan war had done a good deal to | weaken popular sympathy with oppressed nationalities ; but still there was enough of the old Liberal leaven"\ 1 left in England to have made it difficult for any / / British Government to resort to armed intervention / 1 for the sake of suppressing a rising in Egypt, which,j ! however irregular in form, might be represented as I a popular movement in favour of constitutional selt — government.

Within a few days of the successful pronuncia-\ mento, Cherif was induced to make Arabi Assistant I Secretary of War, with the view of enlisting his/ services on behalf of the Ministry. The onlyl practical result was that Arabt immediately began toi intrigue with his chief, Mahmoud Sami, in order to \ oust Cherif from the Premiership. It was on V . Christmas Day, 1881, that the Chamber of Notables / held its first sitting. The members of the Chamber being Egyptians, were naturally in favour of the dominant power, and, as for the time being, power lay in the hands of the military party, they voted in accordance with the instructions they received from the Ministry of War, even if these instructions were j opposed to those given by the Khedive or by the j nominal head of the Ministry. The programme submitted to the Chamber of Notables by the leaders j of the mutiny, and adopted by them as a matter of i course, was as follows : — ,' The Budget was in future to be voted by the/