necessary on the part of the bondholders. To myself, who knew Wilson well, though I sympathized to the full with his humanitarian hopes and personal aspirations, there seemed to be certain elements of doubt in his position which did not augur altogether well for his success.
We parted at Alexandria in good hope that all would go well with him in a mission so much one of despair to a ruined state, but with misgivings. The difficulties before him we both guessed would be immense, and in spite of his excellent qualities of heart and head and his great savoir vivre, I had my fears for him. The event more than justified my forebodings, and in a shorter time than either of us could have thought possible.
Sir Rivers Wilson's brief career as Finance Minister in Egypt failed through many causes. It was of ill omen, I think, at the very outset that it should have commenced with a new and heavy loan, the proceeds of which it is difficult to find were put to any serious purpose. Errors of administration, too, there certainly were which inflicted great injustice on the people, and which, as will be seen later, prepared the way for a general discontent. It is not, however, necessary for me to go into these, for they are matters of notoriety to be found in the Blue Books. Wilson's excuse for them must be found in the fact that in all matters of internal policy he trusted absolutely for guidance to Nubar, and that he greatly overrated Nubar's power to deal with them. If Wilson had been more of a statesman and less of a financier he would not have blundered as he did into political difficulties which, with a little more experience of the arts of government, might have been easily avoided. Nubar was a weak reed on which to lean. As a Christian and an alien it was not difficult for one so astute as Ismaïl to rouse Mohammedan opinion against him, and when, thinking only of restoring the financial equilibrium, Wilson began a series of crude retrenchments among the native officials, a discontented class was at once brought into existence which gave the Khedive his opportunity of diverting the popular ill-will from himself to his Christian Ministers. What made it the more easy for him was that in