Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/168

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152
EGYPT: TEXTS.

be 6,443,600l. sterling, but, in order to determine the real charge which will actually be chargeable in the ordinary State Budget, it is necessary to deduct from that sum 684,411l. sterling, being the contribution of the Daïra Sanieh in proportion to the amount of its debt unified with the State Debt, and thus the annual charge on the State remains at 5,759,189l. sterling ;

Whereas the unification and the consolidation of the State debts into one general debt make it inopportune to continue the payment of the Moukabalah, by which the Government had intended to arrive at the extinction of the floating debt by anticipating the land tax in six yearly amounts ;

Whereas, in consequence of this anticipation, one of the most important revenues of the State would after some years be considerably reduced, while in the interest both of the Government and of the State creditors it is necessary that the revenue of the Treasury be secured, so as to satisfy the interest and the redemption of the Public Debt, and also the Budget expenditure;

Operation of Moukabalah arrested.Whereas for these reasons our Privy Council has proposed to us, and we have approved, to arrest the operation of the Moukabalah[1] by granting to those who have made anticipatory payments all rights and privileges over the property which they would only have definitively acquired after the full payment of the Moukabalah, and to take equitable measures either for the restitution of these anticipatory payments or for a proportionate reduction of taxes, the result of which will be to obviate a considerable reduction in one of the principal sources of the State revenue ;

Whereas, further for the security of the creditors, it has become necessary to establish a special Treasury charged with receiving the amount of revenue devoted to the service of the Debt;

We, the Khedive of Egypt, after consulting our Privy Council, have decreed, and do hereby decree as follows : —

Unification of debt at 7 per cent.Art. I. All the debts of the State and those of the Daïra Sanieh, resulting from loans contracted in the years 1862, 1864, 1868, 1873, 1865, 1867, and 1870, the floating debt of
  1. Revived by Art. 2 of the Goschen-Joubert Decree, but finally abrogated by the Law of Liquidation, Arts. 87-93.