SPOILING THE EGYPTIANS.

Marlborough Press, Volume XXIII, Issue 1348, 31 August 1882, Page 3

SPOILING THE EGYPTIANS.

A Parliamentary Paper, by Sir Edward Malet, has just been issued (says an English exchange), which pretty clearly accounts for the general dissatisfaction with the Khedive’s rule, and for the popular rising which has ended in the murder of 250 Europeans. The fact is scarcely to be credited, but throughout the whole Government of Egypt there is scarcely an official appointment, which is worth having, filled by an Egyptian. At the present time there are some 1300 Europeans with comfortable salaries living in comparative luxury, while the Egyptians are almost excluded from taking part in the government of of the country, English, French, Germans, Italians, Austrians, Greeks, Swiss, Americans, and Poles swarm the various offices, while the Egyptians are elbowed out in the cold. The secretary of the Khedive’s own private office is a Frenchman with £I2OO a year ; the permanent head of the Finance Department is an Austrian with £2OOO a year ; at the head of the Registry are an Englishman and a Frenchman, dividing £3OOO between them. The Director of the Lighthouses and his deputy are Englishmen, one with £I6OO, the other with £IOOO a year. At the head of the War Department is an American with £ISOO a year. The Director of the police at Cairo is an Italian. Rosseau Bey, a Frenchman, gets £2500 a year as Director-General of Public Works. An Englishman with £3OOO a year is president of the Railway Council, and his second in command is a Frenchman with £2500. The commissioners of the state domain who gets £3OOO a year each, are English and French. Altogether £400,000 are annually received by European officials. When Ismail was Khedive it was only necessary to belong to the races which lent him money to get a place of some kind in his service. The army alone was allowed to remain Egyptian, and it is the army which has at length risen in protest. “ Spoiling the Egvptians ” has been a game as old as the Pyramids, but few persons supposed it was carried to such an extent as this.