EP 154,934
Military Expenditure: EP 996,223
TOTAL EXPENDITURES: EP 2,354,354 (EP1 = British P1 0s.6d.)
For something less than two and a half millions sterling active military
operations were carried on for nearly three years, involving the employment
- far from its base - of an army of 25,000 disciplined troops, including an
expensive British contingent of 8,000 men, and ending in the utter defeat
of an enemy whose armed forces numbered at the beginning of the war upwards
of 80,000 soldiers, and the reconquest and re-occupation of a territory
measuring sixteen hundred miles from north to south and twelve hundred
from east to west [Lieut.-Colonel Stewart's Report: Egypt, No.11, 1883],
which at one time supported at least twenty millions of inhabitants.
But this is not all. Of the total EP2,354,354 only EP996,223 can be
accounted as military expenditure. For the remaining EP1,358,131 Egypt
possesses 500 miles of railway, 900 miles of telegraph, and a flotilla of
steamers. The railway will not, indeed, pay a great return upon the capital
invested, but it will immediately pay something, and may ultimately
pay much. The telegraph is as necessary as the railway to the development
of the country; it costs far less, and, when the Egyptian system is
connected with the South African, it will be a sure source of revenue.
Lastly, there are the gunboats. The reader cannot have any doubts as to the
value of these vessels during the war.
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