§ MR. SEYMOUR KEAY (Elgin and Nairn)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that, in order to so balance the Egyptian Budget as to pay the bondholders their interest in full, forced and unpaid labour is still exacted yearly from the peasantry for repairing the banks of 1505 the Nile; whether he has observed that Lord Cromer, in his Report of 9th March last, admits that the abolition of this forced labour appears for the present, at all events, to be impossible, the question being chiefly one of finance, and also that the land assessment is in a few places somewhat too high, and that it is to be hoped that in course of time it may be possible to relieve whatever hardship arises on this account; and whether Her Majesty's Government, as responsible for the Government of Egypt, will take steps to secure that the claims of the bondholders are not met by forced labour and hardships inflicted upon the peasantry of the country?
§ *SIR E. GREYThe claims of the bondholders are the subject of an International arrangement beyond the control of Her Majesty's Government. By referring to Lord Cromer's Report, Egypt, No. 3 (1893), pp. 4, 12, 14, it will be seen that a large annual charge (£E400,000 has been incurred for the purpose of abolishing THE CORVÉE in its most objectionable form, and that the means of abolishing THE CORVÉE, in the limited sense now attached to it, is being considered by the Egyptian Government.