Chapter XXVII: Appendix: IV

LETTER RECEIVED BY MR. BLUNT FROM BOGHOS PASHA NUBAR AS TO HIS FATHER NUBAR PASHA'S POLITICAL CONNECTION WITH THE KHEDIVE ISMAÏL. (TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.)

Paris, _September 26th, 1907_.

SIR,

I have just read in the _Egyptian Gazette_ of the 14th instant your
reply to Mr. Lucy about the Cyprus Convention, and I was very glad
to observe the offer you made in it of correcting in your book any
errors which might be pointed out to you. It has decided me to
appeal to your loyalty in regard to a mistake about my father which
has found its way into it. I do not know from what sources you have
drawn your information, nor do I doubt your good faith, which has
certainly been misled.

You say that Nubar Pasha was Ismaïl's Minister of Finance, and that
in virtue of this office he was responsible for the ruinous loans
contracted by the latter. This is evidently a complete mistake, my
father never having been Minister of Finance, and having had
nothing to do directly or indirectly with any of the loans.

The only offices which he filled during Ismaïl's reign were the
Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He
was never, I repeat, Minister of Finance, for this very good reason
that, in spite of his great intelligence and qualities as a
statesman, he recognized that he did not understand financial
questions, and the Khedive, who also knew it, would never have
thought of confiding a Ministry to him, which he himself felt he
was incapable of directing.

Ismaïl's Minister of Finance was the Moufettish Ismaïl Pasha Sadek,
whom you speak of on pages 18, 39 and 40 of your book. He was the
sole collaborator and confidant of the Khedive upon financial
matters, and it was he who organized the loans.

As to my father, I think what will best show you how entirely he
was a stranger to financial administration, is a simple _résumé_ of
his career, under Ismaïl, which I shall try to condense into a few
lines.

"In the very first year of Ismaïl's accession, 1863, Nubar Pasha
was sent on a mission to Paris to regulate the differences relating
to the Suez Canal. He remained there two years, and upon his return
to Egypt he was appointed, first, Minister of Public Works, and
then, Minister for Foreign Affairs. A year later, in 1866, he went
once more on a mission to Europe, and remained three years absent.
It was during this period that he obtained the Firman of 1867,
granting to Egypt administrative autonomy, the right of making
Customs Conventions with the Powers, and the title of Khedive for
the Viceroy. It was at this time, too, that he commenced the first
negotiations for Judicial Reform with the Powers. He did not return
to Egypt until 1869, and then for six months only, in order to
assist at the opening of the Suez Canal, and preside at the
Commission of Inquiry for Judicial Reform which was sitting at
Cairo, and he returned to Paris in 1870 to continue there the
negotiations for the Reform. These negotiations, begun in 1867,
lasted until 1875, about eight years, during which time Nubar Pasha
lived almost entirely in Europe, with the exception of short
intervals of a few months in Egypt. In 1874 he was dismissed by the
Khedive on account of a difference of opinion relative to the said
negotiations, and he remained in Europe without employment for a
year. He was recalled by Ismaïl to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs
in June, 1875. Six months later, he was again dismissed, January,
1876. He then remained two years in Europe, exiled, and did not
return until 1878, when recalled by the Khedive to form the Mixed
Ministry in conjunction with Sir Rivers Wilson."

My father declares in his memoirs, which I hope one day to be able
to publish, that during the fifteen years of Ismaïl's reign, he
spent twelve in Europe on missions, on leave of absence, or in
exile. The dates and facts which I have recited above prove the
accuracy of this statement. During all these absences from Egypt,
Nubar Pasha, exclusively occupied with his negotiations, could not
take any part in the interior affairs of the country, about which
he was not even consulted. Thus, while in Paris in 1869, he learnt
from M. Béhic, Minister of Public Works to the Emperor Napoleon
III, in the course of a conversation with him relative to the
Judicial Reform, that the Khedive had just arranged a loan of ten
millions sterling, of which my father had not even been informed;
and again, at Constantinople in 1873, where he was pursuing his
negotiations for the Reform, it was indirectly that he learned that
the Khedive was negotiating a fresh loan of thirty millions.

You see, Sir, by these facts, which it will be easy for you to
verify, that not only was my father never Minister of Finance, nor
connected with the Khedive's loans, but that all his energy, his
talents and the influence which he had acquired were employed in
negotiations abroad: (1) for the regulation of the question of the
Suez Canal, which culminated in the arbitration of Napoleon III,
through which Egypt obtained a verdict for the abolition of forced
labour in the making of the Canal; (2) for obtaining Firmans from
the Sublime Porte; (3) for the Judicial Reform which was his
conception and his work, and to which he consecrated all his
energy, his intelligence, and the best years of his life. I must
also add that he continued to work zealously for the abolition of
forced labour while Director of Railways and at the Ministry of
Public Works. This we owe in large measure to him, as Sir W.
Wilcocks so courteously testifies in his book on the Irrigation of
Egypt.

Do you not think, Sir, that I have a right under these
circumstances to appeal to your courtesy in asking you to rectify
in the new edition of your book the erroneous passages which I have
mentioned? You cannot fail to see the importance which I attach to
these corrections, for it would not be just, in a work bearing upon
history, for my father to be held responsible for government
measures to which he was altogether a stranger.

My father in the course of his laborious career made many friends,
but also many enemies, as all politicians do. His enemies have not
failed to spread calumnies about him and to invent stories. I will
only cite two: First, that concerning his nationality. His
political adversaries, in the interest of their cause, successively
reproached him with being an English and a German subject! These
allegations, the object of which was to discredit him in the course
of his negotiations for Judicial Reform by contesting, though he
was a Minister of the Khedive, his Egyptian nationality, have been
since recognized as being without any foundation. Another legend
relates to his supposed immense fortune. The most calumnious and
fantastic assertions have been made with regard to this, generally
by people who were interested in tarnishing the memory of an
adversary by leaving it to be understood that such great wealth
could only have been acquired by unlawful means. They did not
hesitate to say and write that he possessed more than four millions
sterling. Although I have not condescended up to now to reply to
calumnies which have appeared in newspapers, there is no reason why
I should not give you, for your personal information, the precise
facts and figures.

At his death my father left a fortune of £155,000, having settled
upon my mother during his lifetime a personal fortune amounting to
an equal sum. Thus the four millions, at which the most moderate
estimators valued what he possessed, were not in reality more than
about £300,000. This is a fact which can easily be verified, for
the Deed of Partition of his inheritance--there being children who
were minors among the heirs--was registered at the Mixed Tribunal
at Cairo.

It is equally easy to show the sources from which this fortune was
derived. It consisted of donations, which he had received from the
Khedive in recompense for services rendered, and of an
exceptionally fortunate investment of a part of these donations.

By the _résumé_ which I have given of his career, you will see the
importance of the services he rendered to his country and the
results obtained by his various negotiations. The Khedive did not
fail to recompense him, as he had recompensed others of his
Ministers, and as the British Parliament has recently done for Lord
Cromer by voting him a donation of £50,000. Thus he received, upon
the successful result of the negotiations relating to the Suez
Canal, the Firman of 1867 and the Judicial Reform, various
recompenses consisting of sums of money, of a property of nine
hundred acres, and of a house in Alexandria--the whole being of the
value of about £80,000.

My father had the fortunate inspiration, at the creation of the
Cairo Water Company, of which he was President, to invest an
important part of this sum, £25,000, in shares of the Company; and
this investment alone sufficed to raise his fortune to the sum I
have indicated, for it is a matter of public knowledge that the
Cairo Water Company's shares had gone up to ten times their value
at the date of Nubar Pasha's death.

I will end by begging you to excuse my having written you so long a
letter, but your offer of rectification proves your anxiety to be
impartial and has authorized my doing so. Thanking you in advance,
therefore, for the corrections which my information will enable you
to make, I beg you will accept, Sir, etc.,

BOGHOS NUBAR.

_Note._--I am glad to have obtained Boghos Pasha's permission to publish the whole of this interesting letter, and regret that I cannot, at the late date of my receiving it, make any alteration in the text of this edition, such as he at first suggested. I think, however, that the letter, published in full, will be found more satisfactory than a mere omission of the passages it corrects could possibly have been.

W. S. B.