HC Deb 07 July 1884 vol 290 cc201-2
MR. VILLIERS STUART

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is true that, while the interest on the public debt of Egypt is at the rate of four or five per cent. that on the village debts is at forty to fifty; whether payment of these exorbitant rates of interest is enforced by the mixed tribunals under British protection; whether the benefit to the fellaheen from any practicable reduction of the interest on the public debt will bear more than an insignificant proportion to their liabilities, unless relief is also given in the case of that due to Foreign usurers; whether these liabilities were incurred by the peasantry through no fault of their own, but partly through over taxation in the late reign, partly through exacting the full amount of taxes in the autumn of 1882, notwithstanding the serious losses entailed upon the peasantry by the Arabi revolt; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will keep these facts in view, and exert their influence at the Conference to obtain such modification of the law of the mixed tribunals in financial causes as may give relief in the case of debts due to Foreign usurers as well as in the case of the public debt?

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

The rate of interest on Egyptian Stock at present prices is more than 5 per cent. and there can be no doubt that the rate on village debts largely exceeds that amount. The payment of these debts is liable to be enforced by the Mixed Tribunals, which, however, are not specially under British protection more than under that of any other of the 14 Powers, who were parties to their creation. It would, I think, be difficult to enter into the matters alluded to in the third and fourth paragraphs of my hon. Friend's Question within the limits usually assigned to an answer. The subject will not, I conceive, be brought before the Conference; but it has been fully considered by the International Commission which recently sat, with a view to the revision of the Codes administered by the Mixed Courts. That Commission proposed certain changes in the law which will, it is believed, benefit the debtor class.