CLAIM FOR £6,800,000.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13235, 21 July 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

CLAIM FOR £6,800,000.

EGYPTIAN PRINCES FIGHT FOR A SNUG FORTUNE.

No less a sum than £6,800,000 was at stake in a case that has just beeu decided before the Mixed. Court at Cairo, after being adjourned from April 26. The parties to the suit were of quite unusual importance and interest. Plaintiffs were the Princes and Princesses who are the next-of-kin to the late Khedive Ismail of Egypt. Defendants were very numerous, and included the'- Egyptian Government, the Daira Sanieli of the present Khedive; the Credit Fonder Egyptien, and the Daira Sanieb, Limited.- The. origin of the claim to this * huge amount of money presents some admittedly difficult legal problems; but, in a few words, it may, perhaps, be fairly stated thus:— the Khedive Ismail was in power in Egypt, in 1877, the financial troubles of the country became so acute that a High Commission of Inquiry was appointed to consider. the whole question of taxation and to discovei whether any means could be found of discharging the most pressing obligations. This Commission sat for four months, and finally affirmed the principle of the Khedive's responsibility for the deficiency, and found that it was Ismail's duty to assign his properties of the Dairas to the State to an amount sufficient ;to wipe out the deficit. This report the Khedive accepted on the spot, and two.months later an effective, definitive, and absolute assignment to the State of the real property ,of the Khedivial family, the Rothschild loan, and the organisation of the lands called the " State Domains" was made. Subsequently, for better security to possible purchasers, legislation was brought into play to give a good title and to declare those estates State property. But the real battle grounds between the parties ;in this . suit for some six millions were these:—Plaintiffs assert that they were, in spite of the assignment, and the legislation, entitled to the surplus proceeds of the sale of; the ; Dairas to this amount of £6,800,000, and deny absolutely that when, in 1888, Ismail and the Khedivial Princes settled* certain.; proceedings Which they,; had instituted against the Egyptian Government, they gave 'on that occasion a receipt and release which-—wide and general; though'their terms were—-con-stituted any ;' bar. to L the present action. This contention ! has been .ruled inadmissible ,by the Mixed' Court, and judgment was given against- claimants on all point*>.