88 Egypt
ing debts or further advances on the outstanding claims.
So Ismail, having apparently decided to shift the respon-
sibility of repudiation on to foreign shoulders, appointed
(November 18, 1876) Mr. Rivers Wilson and M. de
Blignieres as financial controllers, with limited executive
powers. The British Government refused his proposals
for an extension of the executive employment of
foreigners, but nominated Major Baring (Lord Cromer)
to the Debt Commission (March, 1877). The Debt Com-
missioners, the Controllers, and others, sitting as a
Commission of Inquiry, then produced a report (August,
1878) severely criticising the Government and calling for
various reforms. Ismail responded by announcing that he
would become a constitutional ruler, and by appointing
Wilson as Minister of Finance and de Blignieres as
Minister of Works in a responsible Cabinet. Wilson, in
return, relieved the financial crisis by getting from
Messrs. Rothschild a loan for eight and a half millions
on the security of the domain lands of the Khedival
family that had been separated by Ismail from his own
property.
By thus appointing European Ministers and by re-
ducing himself to a constitutional prince, the Khedive
had, in fact, pawned the only thing left him—his personal
power. But he had no real intention of parting with that
any more than he had of parting with the eminent domain
in the land that he had pledged under the moukabala.
He only wanted to shift on to his Foreign Ministers the
onus abroad of the inevitable repudiation and the odium
at home of reducing expenditure and raising revenue. In
this the Europeans played into his hands. For attributing
all trouble to the personal power of Ismail, and not
realising that it was the only sanction for their own
position, they simplified their administrative task by ex~