268 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

,/ Chamber, which was also to have the right to control \, the administration, to initiate legislation, and to hold tthe Ministers responsible directly to themselves instead of indirectly through the Sovereign. In the abstract, the demands were not unreasonable, supposing Egypt was to become in the near future a country with parliamentary institutions. But no such idea was ever entertained, least of all by the military party, and Xwas, moreover, utterly inconsistent with the personal / government of the Khedive and with the fiscal arrangements guaranteed indirectly by the establ lishment of the Dual Control, in virtue of which the \ foreign bondholders had agreed to a composition, of which Egypt, at all events, had no cause to complain.

France, after her wont, took the lead in demanding intervention on behalf of the bondholders. At the instigation of Gambetta, the then French Prime Minister, France and England agreed to address a joint note to the Khedive, declaring that !'

*'the maintenance of his Highness upon th throne, in the terms laid down by the Sultan's firmans, and officially recognized by the two Governments, is alone able to guarantee for the present and the future good order and prosperity in Egypt, in which the Anglo-French Grovemments are equally interested."

The joint note terminated with the statement — ** that the two Governments being closely associated in the resolve to guard by their united efforts against all cause of complication, internal or external, which might menace 4 «