i; 434 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

who honestly desired to see Egypt governed by a law-abiding and enlightened administration. Both the Khedive and his Prime Minister, Nubar Pasha, ,' considered that, under British supervision, they were ' deprived of the authority and influence essential to j the good government of the country. Nubar's idea had undoubtedly been that Egypt required to be under the protection of some great European Power, and that the Power best fitted for this position was England. Up to the last, he never wavered in this conviction ; but he also never hesitated to express his opinion that it would have been better for England, as well as for Egypt, if England's intervention in the internal administration of Egypt had been indirect instead of direct. What he had hoped was, that England would be content to leave the details of administration entirely in the hands of native Ministers, assisted by European experts, who might lay down the general principles on which Egypt should be administered, but who would leave the mode in which these principles should be carried out in practice to native officials, under the control of a native Prime Minister, whose duty it should be to see that the interests of England suffered no injury, and that in the main the country was governed in accordance with British ideas of justice and order.

This conception was manifestly incompatible with the system of rigid economy and the strict audit of all public receipts and expenditures which the British authorities, acting on the instructions of Sir Evelyn