The remainder of this enormous sum of money was spent in purchasing a change in the law of succession, and the new title of khedive; in disastrous Abyssinian campaigns; in multiplying shoddy palaces, and in personal extravagance, which combined Oriental profusion with the worst taste of the Second Empire.  Useless works engaged the corvee; the fellaheen were evicted from vast tracts, which became ill-managed estates; and their crops, cattle, and even seed were taken from them by the tax-gatherers, so that they died by hundreds when a low Nile afflicted the land.  The only persons who flourished in Ismail’s time were foreign speculators and adventurers of the lowest type.  As these conditions became more serious, the khedive attempted to find some means of protection against the concession-monger.  He adopted a suggestion of the wise Nubar Pasha, and instituted the mixed tribunals for adjudging civil cases between natives and foreigners.

The Powers agreed to the establishment of these tribunals, and intended to enforce the decisions of the courts, even in case that Ismail himself were the delinquent.  When later the khedive repudiated the mixed tribunals, this action precipitated his fall.  It became increasingly difficult for the khedive to meet his accumulated obligations.  The price of cotton had fallen after the close of the American war, and there was less response from the impoverished people to the Cour-bash, which in 1868 was still more strictly enforced; and soon this enforcement by the mixed tribunal of debts due to foreigners by an agricultural population, who lived by borrowing, and were accustomed to settle their debts by haggling, aggravated the misery of the fellaheen, and led to that universal despair which was to give strength and significance to the Arabist revolt.  It was no uncommon procedure for the Levantine money-lender to accompany the tax-gatherer into the provinces with a chest of money.  He paid the taxes of the assembled and destitute fellaheen, who in return were obliged to give mortgages on their crops or holdings.

The desperate state of Egyptian finance, which led to the sale of the precious Suez Canal shares, at last opened the eyes of the bondholders.  Mr. G. T. Goschen (Viscount Goschen) and M. Joubert were deputed to Egypt on behalf of the foreign creditors.  The accounts were found to be in a state of wild confusion, with little or no chance of learning the actual facts controlling the financial situation.  The minister of finance, or “Mufet-tish,” Ismail Pasha Sadeck, was now arrested and banished to Dongola.

There was an immediate prospect of a dual control by England and France.  Commissioners were appointed to constitute a caisse, or court, for receiving the interest due to the bondholders.  The great mass of the debt was then unified, but the Goschen and Joubert arrangement was found to be too severe for the impoverished country.  A low Nile and a famine resulted in a demand for an investigation into the administration, and the following year Ismail was obliged to authorise a commission of inquiry.  The waste, extravagance, and wholesale extortion from the peasantry revealed by this report made a deep impression upon Europe, and Ismail was forced to disgorge the estates which he had received from the fellaheen.