initiating a scheme for an army, at once rational, effective, and economical. But they cannot, for example, deal with that scandal of our finance, the confused and unintelligent system of local taxation. This may seem a very dull subject to rising young politicians in search of a telling cry, yet if they remembered Burke's saying that the State is finance and finance is the State, for on finance depends all reformation and improvement, they might see a field for many a laurel in what looks the most unattractive region in politics. Why should the Conservatives not have prepared to deal with this? Because our party system produces for one statesman, a thousand perfunctory waiters on parliamentary providence. And the worst of this, as we are so often saying, is not merely the waste which it causes of possible improvements in government, but the extent to which it nourishes the mischievous and sapping spirit of political scepticism outside of parliament. The defeat (April 26) of Mr. Forsyth's Bill for conferring the franchise on unmarried women with property was more marked than last year. It was rejected by 239 against 152: last year the same number voted in its favour, but only 187 voted against it. Whatever may be thought of the merits of the Bill, the tone of most of those who oppose it is certainly lower, more trivial, and more gross than marks any other parliamentary subject. Mr. Bright's speech against a proposal for which he had once voted, was open to none of the censure that is due to such speeches as Mr. Leatham's and Mr. Smollett's. It was serious and dignified, and expressed the temper of conservatism and suspicion about social improvement, in a way that naturally told very weightily in a chamber that was chosen to keep the world exactly where it is. In the division (April 5) on Mr. Dixon's Bill, involving the establishment of school boards all over the country, the minority (160 against 281) was almost identical with that of last year. The bulk of the liberal party, with Lord Hartington at their head, supported the measure. The hostile majority was larger than in last year's division for the simple reason that, in view of Lord Sandon's coming proposals, the party whip was more vigilant. It is admitted on one side as on the other, that compulsion has wrought wonders. Non-attendance and irregularity are no doubt, as Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth says in another page, the main causes of the deeply unsatisfactory results of our efforts to instruct the people. But in some of the largest towns in England it has been proved that these difficulties can be reached by compulsion. In Sheffield and Birmingham, for example, the average attendance has been raised more than 100 per cent. since the formation of the School Boards. If compulsion is to be made universal, it can only be entrusted to a representative authority. The magistrates are not to be dreamed of as the depositories of this power. The government inspectors are equally open to the same kind of objections. By all means avoid the creation of new local authorities if possible. But in the country districts what fit and proper authority exists? To make the Board of Guardians an educational instrument would be to surround education itself with a host of odious associations. It may be possible to utilise for our present purpose Local Boards, Boards of Commissioners, and rural and urban sanitary authorities. And the greater the responsibilities of these and all such bodies, the better. If parliament is reluctant to entrust compulsion to them, and where no bodies of the kind already exist, then a School Board is the only practicable agency. The hypocritical solicitude of the sectarian party for the pocket of the ratepayer is moonshine. The cost of a School Board depends entirely on the work it has to do. If it is required to buy land, to build schools, and so forth, the money must be found; if it is not found, the children will go uneducated, and this is the most wasteful and costly luxury in which the well-to-do part of any nation can indulge themselves. Where a Board has not to do heavy work in land and bricks and mortar, -where, that is to say, the accommodation is sufficient, then the cost of putting compulsion into force is very trifling. It is pitiable to see a powerful party lending itself to the clamour about cost. Such clamour really has its source not in the amount of school rate, but in the irrational way in which it is levied. The smallest addition to local rates is severely felt in England, because in England local rates are raised as they are in no other country in the world. A man with an income of fifty thousand pounds may live in a house with a rental of five hundred pounds a year. He pays local rates only upon that. A shopkeeper finds it necessary to occupy premises of the same rateable value, in order to make an income of a thousand a year. He thus pays fifty times as much in rates as his wealthier neighbour. Is it any wonder that the shopkeeping class grumble at any addition to a kind of taxation that already presses so heavily upon them? One of the most eagerly discussed events of the month has been the publication of the Report of Mr. Cave's mission to Egypt. Putting aside all question of the reliability of the figures furnished to Mr. Cave, and the practical possibility of the entire reform of Egyptian management upon which his calculations depend, it seems worth while to consider whether, taking Mr. Cave's own figures, he is really in any degree justified in the conclusion to which he comes, and which the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a vague way seemed to adopt, viz. "that the resources of Egypt are sufficient, if properly managed, to meet her liabilities." We may put aside also the obvious criticism that Mr. Cave supposes a conversion of the floating debt on terms which it is evident that the bondholders will not willingly accept, inasmuch as it involves a heavy loss to them, and that the forcible conversion of the floating bonds, or even the postponement which has already taken place, is just as clearly a failure to meet engagements as the most complete repudiation. We will suppose Mr. Cave's conversion to be effected, and then see whether his calculations are financially reasonable. The figures of income and expenditure furnished to Mr. Cave are substantially identical with those published some months before. In a recent article on Egypt in this Review Sir George Campbell expressed the belief, with reference to those figures, that if the "Mokabilah" were really, as had been stated, a capitalisation of the land revenue, the figured statement was on the face of it a confession of utter insolvency. Does Mr. Cave's explana tion in any way shake this conclusion? He puts the present balancesheet in a slightly different form from that before published, inasmuch as he brings out a surplus excluding the floating debt, and adds to the surplus figure this note :-" which will serve for paying the interest of the floating debt; " in other words, the figures given make income and normal expenditure just to balance. We say normal, for Mr. Cave makes clear that this statement excludes the extraordinary expenditure for the Abyssinian war, &c., for which he elsewhere makes a special provision of £1,000,000. In fact he assigns for the whole military and marine charges scarcely £900,000, a sum manifestly insufficient for the establishments and expeditions now maintained. However, as Mr. Cave puts it, he makes "the present revenue of Egypt" to be £10,689,070, and the normal expenditure about the same. He confesses that by 1886 the "revenue will be largely diminished, but he propounds a plan to meet the loss. Now first, it seems wholly unjustifiable to speak of the £10,689,070 as present revenue. So far from meeting the suggestions that the Mokabilah is not revenue but capital, Mr. Cave explains that part of the subject in a way to show it to be much worse than had been previously supposed. He shows that the arrangement is, that the Khedive has solemnly pledged himself, in consideration of the present payment of the Mokabilah, to remit an annual land revenue not of half (as previously stated), but of the whole amount of the Mokabilah, or rather of the whole amount received, plus eight and one-third per cent. allowed by way of discount. According to his own figures there will thus be a Total loss in 1886 of Mokabilah payments completed Total loss of revenue £1,531,118 £1,671,307 £3,202,425 Surely it is totally unreasonable to treat as present revenue an income of which upwards of three millions sterling are avowedly not revenue but an expenditure of capital. What would be thought of an Indian balancesheet drawn up on these principles ? Clearly, at present at least, there is an enormous deficit in Egyptian finance, even when the expeditions beyond the frontier are excluded. There is a very curious statement about this Mokabilah in the covering letter with which the report was sent-viz., that at the last moment the Khedive naively informed the Commission that he had discovered a serious error in his calculations, and that the land tax would be more seriously diminished than he had anticipated, so that in 1886 he would lose £2,500,000. This cannot include the Mokabilah itself, for, as already shown, the original calculation involves a much greater loss, and although the letter says that the £2,500,000 has been taken into consideration in the tables accompanying the report, this figure cannot be traced there. Leaving aside, however, any further diminution which the Khedive's new-born candour may bring to light, it is enough for the present to repeat that Mr. Cave's calculations show that, of the present so-called revenue, £3,202,425 is not revenue, but a temporary payment of capital, to meet the cessation of which provision must be made. Let us see how he makes this provision. He does it in this wise. By reducing the interest on the floating debt, postponing the sinking funds, and unifying the debts, he saves from £1,300,000 to £1,400,000 on the payments on this account. He further transfers an annual debt payment of £672,608 to the Daira account (which another part of the report shows to be wholly unable to bear such a charge), thus making a total reduction of loan payments of, in round numbers, £2,000,000. Then he assumes a progressive increase of land revenue of half a million, and of other taxes to nearly the same amount, or, in round numbers, £1,000,000; total, £3,000,000. He seems to assume some small reductions of normal expenditure, and the entire avoidance of all extraordinary expenditure of every kind, and further supposes that by immediate economies before the Mokabilah ceases, something may be saved out of the Mokabilah, and used to reduce the debt so as to establish an equilibrium, or rather better. That is briefly his plan. Such a plan savours much more of the sanguine calculations of the chairman of a company in deficit, than of real and sound finance. Is it reasonable to calculate that in a country situated as Egypt is, there will be continued increase of revenue with a continued repression of expenditure, and an entire abstention from all extraordinary charges? Evidence accumulates on all sides to show that the present great revenue has only been attained as the result of a great inpouring of capital and the great rise in the price of cotton, and that it means the extremest oppression of the unhappy fellahs and labourers, whose burdens have been continually increased while the cost of living has become infinitely higher. Now that the price of cotton has fallen hugely, and that the artificial stimulus of fresh loans and lavish expenditure must be withdrawn, it is impossible to calculate on a further progress of the revenue, such as has hitherto been enjoyed. Egypt, like Bombay, depends on cotton, as in India the sugar manufacture on European methods has failed. A recent instructive paper on the Fellaheen, in the Times, shows very plainly how everything depends on cotton, and how the price of cotton has gone. down from fifty-five dollars in the American war to eleven and a half dollars in the present season, so that it now ceases to be profitable. Altogether Mr. Cave's calculations are far too sanguine, and the attempt to meet Egyptian engagements in the sense of paying 7 per cent. all round on the nominal capital of all the loans, must lead to further trouble and disappointment. The plan of Sir G. Elliott and Mr. Lloyd seems a more practical one, founded on a better knowledge of the country. They propose to reduce the nominal capital of the debt, with reference to prices of issue, about 20 per cent. all round, on an average, and then to pay 6 per cent.; or, in other words, they would have the Khedive re-engage to pay about 5 per cent. on the nominal capital of his debts. With good management and strict abstention from warlike expeditions, so much may possibly be met, but certainly not the more liberal payments proposed by Mr. Cave. April 27, 1876. THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. No. CXIV. NEW SERIES.-JUNE 1, 1876. THE NEW DOMESDAY BOOK. THE blue book which furnishes the matter for this article has been long looked for, and had it been well done would have been of great value. In the discussion which must precede any thorough revision of the land laws it would have been well if we had been fully supplied with authentic and relevant facts. Unfortunately the book before us throws very scanty light on the questions which suggest themselves in dealing with the land tenure of England. Some general results of an approximate character we shall be able to glean from its pages; but we must say at the outset that from its omissions and from its careless composition its value as a means of information is comparatively small. It would not be fair to blame altogether the Local Government Board for these deficiencies. In the first place, the scope of the inquiry delegated to them was far too limited. The origin of the return was a speech of the Earl of Derby in February, 1872. His purpose avowedly was to disprove the statements made by many, and prominently by Mr. J. S. Mill, Mr. John Bright, and Mr. Goldwin Smith, as to the small number of persons who owned the land of England, and that that number was diminishing by the absorption of small holdings through the operation of the existing laws. Mr. Bright, in a speech at Rochdale (November, 1863), had said, "With laws such as we have, which are intended to bring vast tracts of land into the possession of one man, that one man may exercise vast political power, that system is a curse to the country, and dooms the agricultural labourer I say to perpetual poverty and degradation." We remember Mr. Goldwin Smith's account of the attempted arrest of Hampden, "and how 4,000 freeholders of Buckinghamshire rode up to protect him. Where are those 4,000 freeholders of Buckinghamshire now?" asked Mr. Goldwin Smith, and Mr. Disraeli was supposed to have made a very witty repartee when he |