himself to solve the difficult problem of reconciling the independence and impartiality of an European code administered by foreign judges with the simplicity of procedure and the latitude of pleading required to render our system of legality a boon, instead of a curse, to an Oriental population. This solution, in the opinion of independent judges of high authority, was, I may state, a very remarkable one; and if ever Western justice is introduced into the East, the principle of this now abortive project will, I believe, be adopted as its basis. Owing to the emptiness of the treasury, M. de Blignières, as Minister of Public Works, had had but little opportunity of developing his department; but he had shown a determination to put a stop to the jobbery and corruption which had hitherto characterised the conduct of almost all public undertakings in Egypt. Altogether, the native population were beginning to suspect that the government of the country had passed, in fact, out of the hands of the Khedive; and if once this impression became general, his power was at an

end.

The time had come for the Khedive to abandon the pretence of indifference he had hitherto assumed. He now came forward in the character of a champion of his people against the oppression of their foreign creditors. Of a sudden an agitation was set on foot against the burden of taxation to which the country was subjected. Though the sums exacted from the taxpayers or at any rate returned as exacted-were smaller than they had been for years past, the fellahs, who had never complained before, became suddenly clamorous for a reduction of their imposts. Deputations came up to Cairo; inspired articles appeared in the native prints, declaring that foreigners were eating up the country, and inveighing against the salaries paid to the European Ministers; crowds were allowed or encouraged to mob the Ministries; and the Khedive began to press upon the Government the paramount necessity of forthwith satisfying claims which he was perfectly well aware the treasury was not in a position to satisfy at the moment. He also gave publicity to his opinion that an immediate reduction of the debt was essential for the salvation of the country. The ground was thus prepared for the blow which was to arrest the work of the Nubar Ministry.

Having quitted Egypt shortly before the recent émeute, I can hardly say how far the demonstration of the disbanded officers was deliberately devised as a plea, or seized upon as an excuse, for insisting upon Nubar's retirement. I incline strongly to the former opinion. But, at all events, the disturbance was of no very grave significance, as it was suppressed without difficulty and without the loss of a single life. Yet the moment the riot was at an end, the Khedive declared that Nubar must leave the Ministry, and that he himself must in future preside over its councils. On the Ille fecit cui prodest principle there can be little doubt who was the real author of VOL. V.-No. 26. Y Y

this stage insurrection. At any rate, the émeute was the Khedive's opportunity. Nubar was called upon to resign. For the reasons I have alluded to, the demand was acceptable to many powerful interests both in and out of Egypt, which on other points would have been opposed to any revival of the Khedive's power. Indeed, the only persons who really stood by the Prime Minister were his European colleagues, and their staunch efforts to have him reinstated in office were frustrated at the last moment by the reluctance of France to insist upon Nubar's return, and by the desire of England to act in harmony with her ally.

The Khedive has undoubtedly won the first move in the campaign he has undertaken to restore his personal rule. Nubar is gone; and already his Highness has demanded the retirement of Riz Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, on the plea that his presence is inconsistent with the preservation of public tranquillity. Riz was a member of the Commission of Inquiry, and, though not a man of the same intellectual calibre as the late Premier, is one of the few honest public servants in Egypt. If Riz goes, the European Ministers will be left without the aid of a single native colleague on whose experience and good faith they can rely for assistance. Little foresight is required to perceive that, if the Khedive is allowed to play out the game, Mr. Rivers Wilson's removal will be the next point at which he will aim. The first steps have been taken. Since the downfall of Nubar, the old system of sudden demands for the payment of taxes in advance, of enforcing compliance by flogging, and of compelling the fellahs to work without wages on the Viceregal estates, has been set on foot once more; and the natives are given to understand that these exactions are committed at the instance and by the orders of Mr. Rivers Wilson, in order to satisfy the rapacity of the foreign creditors. If these tactics succeed, the natives will soon have to attribute their sufferings to the English Moufettish; an outcry will be raised for his dismissal; and the Khedive will avail himself of this outcry to get rid of the Minister whom he has such cause to fear. The success of this intrigue would obviously be greatly facilitated if the good understanding between the English and French Ministers could ever be broken up; and it is clear that the removal of Nubar Pasha, who was wont in familiar conversation to describe himself as the buffer between the representatives of the two Powers, increases the probabilities of such a misunderstanding being brought to pass.

Thus, for the moment, the situation in Cairo wears a most unpromising aspect. Yet, paradoxical as the statement may seem, I regard the crisis which has just commenced as full of hope for the fortunes of Egypt. I hold this opinion because I am confident that the Khedive's campaign must result in his eventual defeat. My confidence is not based merely upon the relative strength of the prin

cipal combatants, though in my judgment the good sense, firmness of will, and singleness of purpose possessed by Mr. Rivers Wilson render him more than a match for the superior astuteness of the Viceroy. But my faith is grounded on the fact that the struggle on which the Khedive has entered is not one between himself and Mr. Rivers Wilson, or M. de Blignières, but between Egypt and Europe, between the East and the West. To such a struggle, fought under such conditions, there can only be one ending, whatever may be the vicissitudes of the contest. All experience has shown that if once European Powers obtain a footing in an Oriental country, they eventually become the masters of the situation. England and France, especially the former, have now got a firm hold on Egypt, and the causes which have led to this hold being obtained will secure its retention. Moreover, the Khedive has no power behind him to fall back upon, no support, either in the affection of his people or the identity of his interests with theirs, on which he can rely. There is no country in the world in which dynasties have been, or can be, changed so easily as in Egypt; and of all the dynasties which have tyrannised over the land of the Pharaohs there has been none which has taken so little root in the soil as that of the Turkish Pashas, of whom Ismail is the present representative. The fight, as I have said, is a losing one. Individual Ministers may be got rid of, but England and France remain; and the Khedive, from the bent of his character, is not the man to fight out a losing battle.

If the Khedive, indeed, could have waited till England and France were at loggerheads on some European question, then he might have played his cards with some chance of success. But the necessities of his position have compelled him to act while the entente cordiale remains unbroken. Thus, though the Khedive might possibly succeed in creating an estrangement between his English and French Ministers, he has no prospect of setting England against France, as the interests which unite the two countries in the West are too powerful for the time to be affected by any divergence of feeling in Egypt. The question, therefore, of the position of the Khedive under the new order of things is likely to be settled while the two great Western Powers are still of one mind in respect of Egypt; and if this question is once settled, Egypt passes definitely under a European Protectorate, from which there is no prospect of her escaping, even though the composition of that Protectorate may easily be modified by the course of future events.

EDWARD DICEY.

THE GOVERNMENT OF LIFE.

In the preceding number of this Review an inquiry was tentatively entered into as to the meaning of life, especially of human life, both social and individual. Therein the conclusion seemed unavoidable that the true purpose of life was to serve as 'an arena for the exercise of free volition,' the fulfilment of duty being the proper end and aim of both individual and social existence. In the course of the inquiry certain subordinate principles were arrived at relating both to the duties of individuals and governments and respecting the relations of 'Church' and 'State.' These it is proposed here to pass in review, in order to see what, if any, more definite rules may be thence deduced for conduct-i.e. for the government of individuals and of communities.

It may perhaps be objected in limine: You have considered man and his social relations in the abstract, not in the concrete; you have had to do with so many puppets, not with men and women. Even if you were right in what you before said, you will certainly be wrong as to any positive rules and maxims you may deduce from a set of abstract speculations-suitable perhaps to wear away an idle hour, but of no practical use to anybody whatever. As men really live and move, it is but an infinitesimal portion of them that will even understand, still less appreciate, the ideas you enunciate. Living men are really dominated mainly by their material wants, and too generally by their lower emotions. Beware, whatever you do, of attempting to construct an ideal community of abstractions, and thence deducing rules for the action of real communities. To do so would be to act like Rousseau and the well- and ill-meaning dreamers of the eighteenth century, the survivors of whom were rudely awakened to behold the dissolution of a great commonwealth in blood and mire. At no time were individuals isolated; they have always existed as constituents of some social organism which has done far more to make them than they have done to constitute it. The social unit was at first "the tribe;" even "the family" was a comparatively late formation. That the teaching coming from such a source as you have chosen will be pernicious, is probable; that it will be thoroughly unreasonable is certain.'

The objection would be unanswerable had the writer the pretension to draw out rules for actual conduct from abstract principles without regard to the many limitations which circumstances render necessary in the concrete. The intention of paying due regard to such limitations and circumstances was announced at the close of the preceding paper, and special attention will be here directed to bearing them in view. Not that the author ventures to hope that he can take anything like a complete view of their number or form an adequate estimate of their importance; he ventures but to throw out a few suggestions which have appeared to him and to some of his friends likely to be useful, especially for conciliating opponents who mistake each other for foes when they really differ only because they respectively see but opposite sides of the same shield.

As to the criticism of the supposed objector based on his estimate of his fellow-men's intellectual powers and moral tendencies, together with their barbarous past and want of individuality, it may be replied as follows: Men, as they exist with all their faults, are, after all, animals with at least latent moral perceptions and emotions and volitional power; they can apprehend more or less distinctly, however imperfectly, the useful, the beautiful, and the good, and for the most part they are more or less, knowingly or unknowingly, religious. Whatever was the physical origin of man, such is his nature now, a nature capable of progressively appreciating his position, his rights, his duties. It may be that all our ancestors were once in a very degraded state; but the individual man, however degraded-as it is he alone who thinks and feels-we must consider as being, and having ever been, the real social unit-a unit, however, of which the tribal or family "state" may have made, and probably did make, small account. Probably also at no time and nowhere have individuals failed to form a "state" of some definite kind, large or small, and existing nations, their laws and customs, have doubtless been derived through diverse sources from rude origins. To seek then violently to change the laws and customs of communities (the masses of which have too often the passions of men with the intellects of children) in obedience to an arbitrary, absolute ideal, would be even more a blunder than a crime.'

But all this is no bar to advocating political ideals in the pages of a periodical addressed to the cultured few, nor does it forbid the attempt to satisfy that desire to justify the ways of man to man which every rational mind must feel as it developes. Moreover, each day advances the movement which transforms the process of civilisation from an unconscious evolution to a fully self-conscious and deliberate development. It is true that vast follies and terrible crimes have been committed in seeking to realise abstract political ideals drawn from within, without due regard to circumstances of time and place. But that is no reason for erecting empiricism itself into an