England and Egypt 309
British to Egyptian rule. There is certainly evidence of
a decrease in efficiency dating not from the declaration
of independence in 1922, but from the first substitution
of Egyptian for English responsibility in administration.
This has been noted above in respect of the experiments
made under Gorst, many of which were subsequently
abandoned. It was to be expected that the baksheesh
evil would again reappear, an evil especially dangerous
to Egypt. For Egypt is a country in which the main
source of wealth is the water supply. Not only the
prosperity of the community as a whole, but the profits
of each individual cultivator depend on the fair distribu-
tion of irrigation. Where it is in the power of an under-
paid official to acquire a competence for life by merely
overlooking the opening of a ditch-sluice on dark nights,
a very high standard of integrity is required. That
standard was obtainable through English inspectors ; but
whether it can ever be got through Egyptians, however
highly educated, so much more exposed as they must be
to the influences of their social surroundings, is still
questionable.
- Apart from integrity, there must be for a time a loss
of efficiency. This, to take one example only, is already
noticeable in the main produce of Egypt—cotton. Within
the memory of man Egypt, once the corn-producer for
Europe, has become its cotton-producer. Egypt provides
one-half of the world's supply of the long staple cotton
that is essential to modern mills. The maintenance of
this position, almost amounting to a monopoly, depends
on scientific supervision of the seed supply—a responsi-
bility very efficiently discharged by British, Italian,
and othe? foreign experts. But the deterioration of sakel
cotton, due to wholesale hybridisation of types and un-
seientific seed-production, that had already caused com-