§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that many native functionaries and employees of the Egyptian Government are paid small salaries, he will instruct the British agent at Cairo to advise that, if those salaries cannot be raised, the Government should withdraw the decree of the Council of Ministers of 19th March, 1906, prohibiting such functionaries or employees from working for private individuals in their own time without the written consent of the Minister to whom they are attached.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYThis is a matter of administrative detail in which His Majesty's Government will not interfere with the Egyptian Government. The Egyptian Government cannot be expected to give up the discretion which it now exercises as to increase of expenditure. I assume that there was good reason for the rule referred to in the last part of the Question; it appears to be elastic, and I am not aware that in practice hardship results from it.
§ Mr. SWIFT MACNEILLIs it not rather hard that these people are to eke out a wretched pittance while the nation is giving Lord Cromer a big subsidy?
§ [No Answer was returned.]