The Birth of Modern Egypt 45
same period. The total revenue, which was less than
;£ i, 000,000 in 1821, doubled in the next ten years, and
doubled again in the following five years.
Mehemet All's system of State monopolies developed
some new forms of production, and did not at first dis-
courage private enterprise. It was only when corruption
crept in and when the cost of foreign war forced the State
into excessive profiteering that the system began to break
down. When the peasant's share in his produce was re-
duced to only one-sixth, when Ibrahim paid for this share,
not in good money but in bad molasses from his sugar
mills, and when false weights and frauds of every sort
destroyed all confidence, then the fellaheen began to
restrict production. This forced Mehemet Ali into con-
scripting labour on State farms—a logical solution that
the Egyptians endured longer than would any European
community. Nor was Mehemet Ali successful, even with
the assistance of his foreign partners, in developing
ambitious State trading schemes without occasional
ruinous losses. For example, in 1816, he sold a million
bushels of wheat at 33. 6d. a bushel, but could not give
delivery until the price had fallen to is. 6d., when the
shippers refused it, and it was left to rot on the wharfs.
But on the whole the system was profitable to the State
and not oppressive to the peasant. And an incidental
improvement due to this State trading was the
Mahmoudiyeh Canal from the Nile to Alexandria to
save the grain barges from going to Rosetta and thence
by sea.
This State Socialism, that has even in our day found
little foreign support when born of a popular revolution, got
a good press in the Europe of a century ago as the work
of an adventurous potentate. The official reports have a
familiar .ring; "When I arrived in 11826," writes