revenue had been calculated at too low a figure, and the cost of the public service at too high a one, in order to reduce the amount available for the service of the debt, and to supply the Government with additional funds beyond those included in the Civil List. This impression gained confirmation from the attitude assumed by the Government in reference to the question of a possible surplus. Sir Rivers Wilson contended that, if the revenue exceeded eight millions, the fairest arrangement, alike for Egypt and her creditors, was to devote this excess to the reduction of the public debt, as thereby, while the stock would be improved in value, the country would be relieved from the weight of an enormous debt. But this contention the Government met with an absolute refusal. Having first declared that 8,000,000l. represented the full revenue on which they could count with any confidence, they argued that the surplus, if any, must be handed over to them, on the plea that they had left no margin for unforeseen expenditure. A subsequent proposal to devote the surplus to the extinction of debt up to one per cent. was likewise tabooed, and all the Government could finally be induced to promise was, that a sum equivalent to half per cent. on the amount of the public debt should, if the surplus would allow, be devoted annually to the redemption of bonds. At this rate, even supposing the surplus always to prove adequate for the purpose, it would take about a century and a half to pay off the existing debt.

In itself the controversy about the disposal of an hypothetical surplus always seemed to me, as knowing Egypt, a doubtful waste of time. But the noteworthy part of the whole discussion is that the Comptrollers throughout supported the demands of the Government as against the Commission. It would be absurd to suppose that the Comptrollers had any interest in augmenting the funds at the disposal of the native administration, or that they were not alive to the desirability of making some real provision for the extinction of the debt. But they felt that the goodwill of the Government was essential to the maintenance of their own authority, and this goodwill could only be secured by assisting the Government in delivering itself as much as possible from the financial fetters which the Commission desired to impose. After a protracted and at times an embittered discussion, the Government got in the main what it demanded, and the net result is, that if the revenue, as there is every reason to expect, should exceed the low estimate of 8,000,000l., or even 8,500,000l., the Egyptian administration will have large funds at its disposal, in addition to the ample provision made by the Civil List, for its normal expenditure.

After these two points, the admission of the Moukabaleh claims and the disposal of the surplus revenue, had been settled by compromises with which the Egyptian Government, at any rate, had no cause to be discontented, the liquidation proceeded rapidly enough.

The truth is, there was very little left to liquidate. The bankrupt being allowed to estimate his own revenue, to fix his own allowance, and to appropriate the bulk of any eventual surplus, all the liquidators had to do was to distribute the sum which, with the bankrupt's consent, was considered available for the payment of a composition to his creditors. The mode in which this was done is of little interest to the general public. All that need be said is that the composition dealt on the whole fairly with all the various categories of Egyptian creditors. If, as I deem, the Floating Debt holders received rather more than their fair share, and the Unified bondholders rather less, this was only because the former were more clamorous than the latter, and better able to enforce their claims.

Supposing I have made my meaning clear, it will be obvious that the liquidation has been a mere compromise, and not in any sense a comprehensive settlement of the Egyptian financial problem. No attempt was made, or could be made, by the Commission to consolidate the various debts, to do away with the special hypothecations of different branches of the revenue, or to abolish the heterogeneous administrations which exist side by side in Egypt. Yet the consolidation of all Egyptian loans into one stock, paying one uniform rate of interest, and the collection of the revenue by one central administration, are the essential conditions of effective and permanent reform. The simple truth is that the Commissioners themselves, or, more strictly speaking, the Powers by whom they were nominated, were not prepared to undertake any such liquidation. All they were agreed upon was the necessity of making some arrangement by which the bondholders should secure such a composition as they would be content to accept; the dead-lock caused by the pretensions of the Floating Debt creditors should be removed; and the authority of the international courts should be preserved intact. In fact, the measure of the Commissioners' power was the extent to which they could rely on the support of the bondholders, and the bondholders were not disposed to press for more than a moderate and reasonably secure composition.

This conclusion brings me to what I regard as the moral of the whole story of the Commission; and that is, that the real permanent force in Egypt is that of the European capital which either directly or indirectly is interested in its welfare. It is the fashion in certain quarters to decry the greed of the bondholders, and I have no wish to represent them as actuated by higher motives than ordinary humanity. But, as a matter of fact, it is the influence of these much maligned bondholders, not that of any European concert, which stopped the late Khedive in his insane expenditure, which brought about the restitution of the estates appropriated by his greed, which led to his deposition, and which has secured the establishment of an

orderly and honest administration. It is to this influence we have now to look for the maintenance of the reforms introduced.

That there exists such an influence, independent of party politics and diplomatic jealousies, must be matter for satisfaction to all who have at heart the welfare of Egypt. The one fundamental condition of law and order in Egypt is the presence of a powerful and dominant European element in the administration. While giving the young. Khedive, Riaz Pasha, and his colleagues, full credit for an honest desire to administer Egypt with a view to the interests of the country, and not to their own enrichment or aggrandisement, I cannot conceal from myself that they cannot hold their own without European supervision against the permanent forces which tend to reduce Egypt under the sway of corruption, extravagance, oppression, and maladministration of all kinds. If ever, in fact, Egypt were left to herself, she would inevitably fall back into the condition she was in under Ismail Pasha. Now the Comptrollers do undoubtedly supply the supervision required. I may, and do, disapprove in many respects of the policy they have pursued, and especially of the opposition they have offered to the development of European enterprise in Egypt; but so long as they represent the protectorate of England and France, I should regret their downfall most sincerely. Still it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that their tenure of power is insecure. Though for the moment the native administration may work in harmony with the Comptrollers, yet the Khedive and his ministers, whoever they may be, are anxious to shake off their tutelage at the earliest moment possible. The other Powers are always on the look-out for any opportunity of overthrowing the Anglo-French protectorate; and the independent European mercantile community, who might have rendered the Comptrollers a most efficient support, have been alienated by their shortsighted hostility. Moreover, their position is logically a weak one. As soon as Egypt, thanks to the Commission, has emerged from her financial embarrassment, and is in a position to meet her engagements, the exceptional state of things which justified the exceptional powers conceded to the Comptrollers will have ceased to exist. At no distant period the Egyptian Government will in all probability demand the abolition, or at any rate the suspension, of the Control, on the plea that the country could be ruled more economically and more efficiently by a single native administration than it is at present by a number of independent and inexperienced European administrations. This demand will be supported by the Powers not represented in the protectorate. No doubt, if England and France are determined to insist upon the retention of the Comptrollership, they have the power to do so. But, in order to do this, they must be ready to assert distinctly their determination to keep Egypt for themselves, a thing they have always shrunk from doing, and they must be prepared to pursue a common policy loyally and openly, which they have

never done as yet. France, who has gained the most by the protectorate, and has no objection to the charge of intervention, might be willing to uphold the control system. But France by herself is powerless in Egypt; and I doubt greatly whether England will consent to assume any direct responsibility in conjunction with France for the internal administration of Egypt.

If, therefore, the only guarantee for the new and better order of things now established in Egypt under the present Khedive consisted in the permanence of the Comptrollership, I should not be oversanguine as to its duration. Fortunately the European community, which is daily increasing in power and influence, has the most direct and personal interest in preserving Egypt from falling back under arbitrary rule. The stake is too large to be imperilled with impunity. All experience shows that when once European traders have obtained a legal footing in an Oriental country they are not to be ousted from their tenure. Through the international courts the Europeans have obtained such a footing in Egypt, and they will insist on the administration of the country remaining, in one form or another, under European control. But in so insisting they will look to their own interests, which in many respects are only partially identical with, and in others are absolutely hostile to, those of England. However, we had the game in our own hands, and refused to make ourselves masters of Egypt while it lay within our grasp. We cannot wonder or complain if other persons accept what we refuse, and if Egypt passes under the control of a European instead of an English or even an Anglo-French protectorate. Independent in any true sense of the word, after all that has come and gone, Egypt can never be.

EDWARD DICEY.

HYPNOTISM.1

CONSIDERING the length of time that so-called 'animal magnetism,' 'mesmerism,' or 'electro-biology' has been before the world, it is a matter of surprise that so inviting a field of physiological inquiry should have been so long allowed to lie fallow. A few scientific men in France and Germany have indeed, from time to time, made a few observations on what Preyer has called the Kataplectic state' as artificially induced in human beings and sundry species of animals; but anything resembling a systematic investigation of the remarkable facts of mesmerism has not hitherto been attempted by any physiologist in our generation. The scientific world will therefore give a more than usually hearty welcome to a treatise which has just been published upon the subject by a man so eminent as Heidenhain. The research of which this treatise is the outcome is in every way worthy of its distinguished author; for it serves not only to present a considerable and systematic body of carefully observed facts, but also to lead the way for an indefinite amount of further inquiry along the lines that it has opened up.

Heidenhain conducted his investigations on medical men and students as his subjects, one of them being his brother. He found that in the first or least profound stage of hypnotism, the patient, on being awakened, can remember all that happened during the state of mesmeric sleep; on awakening from the second or more profound stage, the patient can only partially recollect what has happened; while in the third, or most profound stage, all power of subsequent recollection is lost. But during even the most profound stage, the power of sensory perception remains. The condition of the patient is then the same, so far as the reception of sensory impressions is concerned, as that of a man whose attention is absorbed or distracted; he sees sights, hears sounds, &c., without knowing that he sees or hears them, and he cannot afterwards recollect the impressions that were made. But the less profound stages of hypnotism are paralleled by those less profound conditions of reverie in which a

1 Der sogenannte thierische Magnetismus. Physiologische Beobachtungen, von Dr. RUDOLF HEIDENHAIN, ord. Professor der Physiologie und Director der physiologischen Institutes zu Breslau. (Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig, 1880.)