* * * * * *
It Will Be Convenient, Before Embarking Upon The Actual Chronicle
Of The Military Operations, To Explain How The Money Was Obtained To Pay
For The War.
I desire to avoid the intricate though fascinating tangles
of Egyptian finance.
Yet even when the subject is treated in the most
general way the difficulties which harass and impede the British
administrators and insult the sovereign power of Egypt - the mischievous
interference of a vindictive nation, the galling and almost intolerable
financial fetters in which a prosperous country is bound - may arouse in
the sympathetic reader a flush of annoyance, or at any rate a smile
of pitying wonder.
About half the revenue of Egypt is devoted to the development and
government of the country, and the other half to the payment of the
interest on the debt and other external charges; and, with a view
to preventing in the future the extravagance of the past, the London
Convention in 1885 prescribed that the annual expenditure of Egypt
shall not exceed a certain sum. When the expenditure exceeds this amount,
for every pound that is spent on the government or development of Egypt
another pound must be paid to the Commissioners of the Debt; so that,
after the limit is reached, for every pound that is required to promote
Egyptian interests two pounds must be raised by taxation from an already
heavily taxed community. But the working of this law was found to be so
severe that, like all laws which exceed the human conception of justice,
it has been somewhat modified.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 138 of 476
Words from 36443 to 36701
of 127807
