The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-27 00:00:00

obstacles in his way, whilst others make complaints which fre-
quently go unredressed.
ALEXANDRIA, Alav 6.—The principal news is naturally
the arrival of the Pacha on the Ist, and with him his sou, Said
Pacha (fatter than ever) who will assume the command of the
Egyptian fleet., In the meantime, however, his time has not
been unprofitably employed, and the system of supplying the
want of native capital, energy, and enterprise, by the appro-
priation of shifliks in the hands of the great officers of that state
has succeeded well. Said Pacha, with Abbas Pacha, and
Ibrahim Pacha the younger, have already entered the market
as the sellers of aportion of the produce of their agricultural
labours, and have contracted for the whole of their growths of
sessamun seed, now about to be sown, at most flattering prices,
deliverable in November next. Ibrahim Pacha, the elder, re-
serves to sell when his produce will be ready for the market.
There is no longer any question of the free trade which is
officially (verbally) announced by the Minister to be in force;
and that of the coming harvest, and the cotton now planted,
all persons who wish to do so, may proceed to purchase on the
spot. Many European agents of commercial houses here have
already proceeded to the interior to make purchases. The
Paella on his arrival here told the merchants it was his inten-
tion to sell his present deposits and the future produce
of his own shifliks, by public auction at regular in-
tervals, as formerly practised. We were not, therefore,
a little surprised to find, after three days of expectation,
it was rumoured that two merchants had privately bought
from the Government the greater portion of their pre-
sent grain deposits at the very yrices so long up-
held by the Minister, and which, in the absence of the Pacha
no person would pay. The sale was announced of 115,000 ar-
debs beans, at 36 piastres, and 60,000 ardebs wheat, at 65
piastres, payable, however, on treasury assignments, which
assignments, owing to the want of proper organisation in the
Egyptian finance department. are always to be purchased at a
very heavy disccunt, dependent upon the prospect of their
prompt or remote payment by the Government ; for instance,
a week ago these assignments were to be bought at 30 per cent.
discount, while to-day the discount is only 14 per cent. This
discount, however, enables the buyers to resell in the place for
cash at the very price which the merchants would have paid
the Government in the cash they so much wanted many weeks
ago—they have only nominally obtained a price which it
was ridiculous to pretend to; but the Minister has carried
his point, and has shown the Paella that the prices he
exacted were really obtainable, while the Pacha can be
easily kept in ignorance of the extent of the discount to
which his " promises to pay" are subjected. The cry-
ing evil of this country, the incubus upon its progress
in the scale of nations, has been a perpetual succession of
financial blunders, and trying to do too much, taxing the
country far beyond its powers; but an unprejudiced observer
may already perceive the progress a few months of peace and
the direction of the energies of its ruler to its internal develop-
ment have already produced. Two or three years of peace and
quiet government will change the face of the country, and al-
t hough the amelioration . of the condition of its people may be
more sloe, it will nevertheless be sure, and in their present
unsettled state the shiflik system will work bettter than any
other. Innumerable canals, unused for centuries, have been
already opened under the immediate superintei.dence of the
Pacha and his superior officers, and immense tracts of formerly
uncultivated lands have thus again been brought into cultivation,
which will, with a favourable Nile this year, snore than
treble the average produce of the country, while the Pacha,
shorn of the glory of the possession of Candia, Syria,
and the lledjas, is spared the exhausting drain upon the
Egyptian treasury and the cultivators of his soil, which
crippled the noble resources of this country ; and by continuing
to direct for a few years longer his mighty energies in their
present channel, Egypt may yet hope to live in wealth and
civilisation, with its former position in the scale of nations.
Orders have already been given for the re-commencement of
the " barrage," at the head of the Delta, fur the better irriga-
tion of those provinces—a plan long since abandoned as im-
practicable, atter immense outlay ; and so it will, I fear, again
be found. Egypt is not yet the country in which similar
gigantic operations can be attempted. Similar attempts may
be considered the errors of a great mind ; but still they are •
errors most prejudicial to a State hardly emerging from the
exhaustion of protracted foreign wars, and most imper;ect in-
ternal administration. Adventurers will not be wanting to
suggest the facility with which unprecedented undertakings can
be carried through, as long as they cars thereby ensure' profit-
able employment for themselves • but surely the signal failure
of the previous attempt to carry through this undertaking ought
to have been a sufficient warning.