Financial Reconstruction 159
stitutionalists, and had all been adopted by Arabi, That
Sherif, during the "anarchy" of 1882, had produced
a Budget surplus of ££400,000, and that Ismail had
reduced the debt more than Cromer ever did. That
Cromer's early deficits were due to the expenses of
crushing Arabi, while his difficulties were all derived
from an extension of international control caused by
British intervention. To which we can reply that the
militarist regime under Arabi would not have been
economical; and that though a revolutionary cut might
have been made of the various anomalies and abuses,
yet that our evolutionary cure had advantages over such
a surgical operation.
The kurbash or hippopotamus hide whip had been the
main instrument of Egyptian administration since the
days when Pharaoh and the hippopotamus ruled the Nile.
Whenever anything was wanted—recruits for the army,
evidence by judges, or taxes for the Government—the
Pasha kurbashed the Sheikh and the Sheikh kurbashed
the fellaheen. The kurbash had again and again been
prohibited ; but in vain. The British made an effective
effort to put it down. Under them that trodden worm
the fellah did at last turn. "You cannot kurbash me/1
he would say to his Sheikh. " I will tell the English/1
. Its abolition, even so, took time. " I am not prepared
to state confidently that the use of the kurbash and other
forms of torture have altogether disappeared/' wrote
Lord Cromer as late as 1891 (Egypt, No. III., p. 53).
But in time the Government of Egypt became as
exemplary, if also as exotic, as that of Gibraltar. And
it was a later generation of Egyptians, and one that
had never felt the kurbash, who complained that they
would sooner have been chastised with whips than with
" scorpions/1