As to the sudden fall in the price of cotton, his only expedient for making good the loss was to grow sugar on a great scale, but this was done so unwisely as to increase the deficits.  As a natural consequence, the Egyptian debt, which at his accession stood at L3,000,000, reached the extraordinary sum of L89,000,000 in the year 1876, and that, too, despite the increase of the land tax by one-half.  All the means which oriental ingenuity has devised for the systematic plunder of a people were now put in force; so that Sir Alfred Milner (now Lord Milner), after unequalled opportunities of studying the Egyptian Question, declared:  “There is nothing in the financial history of any country, from the remotest ages to the present time, to equal this carnival of extravagance and oppression[356].”

[Footnote 356:  England in Egypt, by Sir Alfred Milner (Lord Milner), 1892, pp. 216-219. (The Egyptian L is equal to L1:0:6.) I give the figures as pounds sterling.]

The Khedive himself had to make some sacrifices of a private nature, and one of these led to an event of international importance.  Towards the close of the year 1875 he decided to sell the 177,000 shares which he held in the Suez Canal Company.  In the first place he offered them secretly to the French Government for 100,000,000 francs; and the Foreign Minister, the Duc Decazes, it seems, wished to buy them; but the Premier, M. Buffet, and other Ministers hesitated, perhaps in view of the threats of war from Germany, which had alarmed all responsible men.  In any case, France lost her chance[357].  Fortunately for Great Britain, news of the affair was sent to one of her ablest journalists, Mr. Frederick Greenwood, who at once begged Lord Derby, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, to grant him an interview.  The result was an urgent message from Lord Derby to Colonel Staunton, the British envoy in Egypt, to find out the truth from the Khedive himself.  The tidings proved to be correct, and the Beaconsfield Cabinet at once sanctioned the purchase of the shares for the sum of close on L4,000,000.

[Footnote 357:  La Question d’Egypte, by C. de Freycinet (1905), p. 151.]

It is said that the French envoy to Egypt was playing billiards when he heard of the purchase, and in his rage he broke his cue in half.  His anger was natural, quite apart from financial considerations.  In that respect the purchase has been a brilliant success; for the shares are now worth more than L30,000,000, and yield an annual return of about a million sterling; but this monetary gain is as nothing when compared with the influence which the United Kingdom has gained in the affairs of a great undertaking whereby M. de Lesseps hoped to assure the ascendancy of France in Egypt.