§ MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to an account of an interview with Sir C. C. Scott-Moncrieff, published in The Pall Mall Gazette on 16th June, in which it was stated that, in Egypt in 1884, the rich lauded proprietors always managed somehow or other to get their slaves and retainers exempted from ser vice upon the corvee; whether this statement that slaves were employed in agricultural labour in Egypt after the 15 British occupation it, accurate; and whether slaves are now employed?
§ SIR E. GREYThe Slave Trade is illegal in Egypt, and is rigorously punished, but the possession of slaves in the country is not illegal. Slaves have, however, a right to claim their freedom on application to the Manumission Office, and as from time to time they continue to do so, and fresh slaves are not being imported, slavery is dying out. The owners of slaves employ them on agricultural as on domestic work.