EGYPT UNDER BRITISH SUPERVISION. 427 era in which British supervision over the civil administration of Egypt was first' brought into active execution.

The financial difficulties of the country had been removed for the time being by the loan of ;9,ooo,ooo, to which I have already alluded. To avoid the recurrence of similar embarrassments, the first duty of the Government was, according to British ideas, to keep the public expenditure within the public revenue. This end, as the British authorities conceived — and, I think, justly conceived — could only be effected by introducing regularity and economy into all departments of the administration. It was obvious that the simplest, if not the sole, way of inducing native administrators to replace disorder by order and extravagance by economy was for the British authorities in Egypt to exercise a direct supervision over every department of the State by the agency of British officials, responsible in name to the Egyptian Government, but in reality responsible to their own Government, as represented by our Consul-General. Whenever any questions upon the subject of our intervention in the civil affairs of Egypt were asked of the British Government, the interrogator was told that the aim of our intervention was to create a native public service competent to carry on the administration, in accordance with European principles, after our troops had quitted Egypt, and thus to prepare the country for the independence we were anxious to restore to her. I have never doubted the