§ MR. MOLLOYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he is in possession of any other evidence, other than that of the European officials, which shows that abominable oppression existed in Egypt in a less degree since the establishment of the European Control than existed previously to that event; if it is not a fact that the "abominable oppression" was at its worst between 1875 and 1880, during which time Taxes were wrung from the people to pay the Foreign bondholders; if he can lay upon the Table any Papers that will show that Sir Rivers Wilson took adequate means to stop the oppression of the cultivator during the time he was a member of the Egyptian Cabinet; if it be a fact that the Control raised a revenue by taxation of about £10,600,000, of which about half went to the bondholders; if in 1864, prior to the Egyptian Control, £4,900,000 only was raised by the Khedive for all purposes; if it is a fact that the taxation imposed by the Control to pay the bondholders was greater by about £6,000,000 than that imposed even under the oppressive rule of the Pashas; and, if the Correspondence and discussions that have taken place relative to the right of the Egyptian people to vote its own Budget should be treated as confidential or made public to Parliament?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKESir, with the permission of the hon. Gentleman, I will answer the Question. Numerous reforms were introduced at the instance of the Controllers, chiefly in pursuance of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry of 1878; one decree alone removing 28 small, but vexatious 1692 taxes. The payment of land tax in kind was suppressed; the personal tax, cited by the Commission of Inquiry as more inequitable than any other, was abolished; the abuses connected with the salt tax were corrected; the periods for payment of the land tax were adjusted so as to coincide with the ingathering of the crops; and, as the result of these and other improvements, the taxes up to the date of the late disturbance were paid with ease and regularity. There are no Papers as to the particular measures taken by Sir Rivers Wilson while he was Finance Minister; but it is the case that one of his first acts was the publication of strict instructions forbidding the use of the stick, which had been the usual means of coercing the Native taxpayer, and the appointment of Inspectors, whose special duty it was to report to him any acts of oppression on the part of the officials. The Control was established in November, 1876. The Budget for 1876 given to Mr. (afterwards Sir Stephen) Cave by the Khedive, at the end of 1875, estimated the Receipts at £10,772,611. It is, therefore, not the fact that the taxation imposed by the Control to pay the bondholders was greater by £6,000,000, or by any amount at all, than that "imposed under the oppressive rule of the Pashas." The Control, as already stated, was established, not in 1864, as the hon. Member appears to assume, but more than 12 years after that date; and if the taxation at which he states the Revenue in 1864 increased to the amount which it reached in 1876, no responsibility attaches to the Control. It may be observed that, while the Budget which the Khedive gave to Mr. Cave in 1875 estimated a Revenue of £ 10,772,000, that fixed by the Commission of Liquidation in 1880 settled the Revenue upon an estimated basis of £8,576,000 only, being a reduction of over £2,000,000. I have already several times stated that the Papers asked for in the last branch of the Question refer to a matter still pending.