adition of lavish expenditure, met by grinding the peasantry, was
accentuated by Mehemet's successors. It inevitably impoverished the
country. Large loans were raised in the West, to meet increasing
deficits; and the European creditors in course of time found it
necessary to insist that specific revenues should be ear-marked as a
security for their interest, and to claim powers of supervision over
finance. The construction of the Suez Canal (opened 1869), which was
due to the enterprise of the French, promised to bring increased
prosperity to Egypt; but in the meanwhile it involved an immense
outlay. At the beginning of our period Egypt was already on the verge
of bankruptcy, and the Khedive was compelled to sell his holding of
Suez Canal shares, which were shrewdly acquired for Britain by Disraeli.

But financial chaos was not the only evil from which Egypt suffered.
There was administrative chaos also, and this was not diminished by the
special jurisdictions which had been allowed to the various groups of
Europeans settled in the country. The army, unpaid and undisciplined,
was ready to revolt; and above all, the helpless mass of the peasantry
were reduced to the last degree of penury, and exposed to the merciless
and arbitrary severity of the officials, who fleeced them of their
property under the lash. All the trading nations were affected by this
state of anarchy in an important centre of trade; all the creditors of
the Egyptian debt observed it with alarm. But the two powers most
concerned were France and Britain, which between them held most of the
debt, and conducted most of the foreign trade, of Egypt; while to
Britain Egypt had become supremely important, since it now controlled
the main avenue of approach to India.

When a successful military revolt, led by Arabi Pasha, threatened to
complete the disorganisation of the country (1882), France and Britain
decided that they ought to intervene to restore order, the other powers
all agreeing. But at the last moment France withdrew, and the task was
undertaken by Britain single-handed.[7] In a short campaign Arabi was
overthrown; and now Britain had to address herself to the task of
reconstructing the political and economic organisation of Egypt. It was
her hope and intention that the work should be done as rapidly as
possible, in order that she might be able to withdraw from a difficult
and thankless task, which brought her into very delicate relations with
the o