§ MR. MOLLOYasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If Her Majesty's Government, with a view to promote peace and contentment in Egypt, will take any steps to negotiate with the European Powers to obtain an arrangement whereby the cultivators in Egypt may receive adequate compensation for their advances of a sum amounting to £17,000,000 under the law of Moukabalah; if it is a fact that the annual sum of £150,000, provided by the Law of Liquidation of 1880, does not amount to even one per cent, interest upon the capital sum of £17,000,000, and fails altogether to repay the princi- 1160 pal; and, if it is a fact that this sum of £17,000,000 was advanced under solemn contract with the Egyptian Government, and as purchase money for a fifty per cent, reduction of Land Tax, which has not been granted?
§ LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEFull information with regard to the question of the Moukabalah is contained in the second Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the finance of Egypt (Egypt, No. 5, 1879). It will be seen from Sir C. Rivers Wilson's Report on the Law of Liquidation (Egypt, No. 1, 1881), that a large portion of the £17,000,000 was considered to have been fictitious payments, and the annuity of £150,000 was what, in view of the various financial circumstances, the Liquidation Court determined should be devoted to compensating the Moukabalah landowners.