England and Egypt 311
A Commission on Public Health appointed during the
war reported that "the greater part of Egypt is filthy
and plagued by disease. The infant mortality is appal-
ling, one-third dying in infancy. The verminous condi-
tion of the fellaheen shows no improvement, though lice
are now known to convey the typhus and relapsing fevers
that account for so many deaths/1 In Egypt there are
as yet no signs of a national campaign against disease
and dirt, such as that which has achieved so much in
Russia and has attempted great things in Turkey. There
is, on the contrary, rather a slackening of effort. The
European quarters are not so clean, the Egyptian
quarters are even dirtier. The organisation for fighting
disease has been dangerously impaired. But Egyptians
are becoming acutely alive to the necessity of activity
against such national scourges as bilharzia and ankylo-
mastis. Improvement in this respect, failing hygienic
campaigns like those of Russian communism, can only
come slowly with the education of women.
When we come to general evidence of progress the
figures of foreign trade and fiscal returns suggest that
the nationalist revolution in Egypt having been only
political, one might say almost only polemical, has not
disturbed the economic existence in Egypt as such revolu-
tions have elsewhere. Business remains as yet mainly
in foreign hands, either in those of the foreign colonies
or of the semi-native communities. The Bank of Egypt,
a Nationalist institution, is as yet unimportant, and
banking is mostly in the hands of either the British or
the Jews. Wholesale trade is mostly carried on by
foreigners, and retail trade by Greeks or by Syrians. The
British are to the fore in the cotton trade, in coal, in
Manchester goods, and in machinery. The French are
the largest creditors, and their main enterprises are the