It is only when the reasonable is denied that men persist in demanding the unreasonable. Trades-unions were now debating instead of conspiring. Democracy was certainly more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, in each by its own merits. This generation had seen democracy with an imperial figure-head, and no body-politic had ever embraced the whole people in the direction of affairs. The framers of the American Constitution were very far from intending a democracy in the strict sense of the word. They knew better than to commit the folly of breaking with the past, or to think, like the French, that a new government could be ordered like a new suit of clothes. They recognised fully the value of tradition and habit, and they had that distaste for innovation which belonged to the English race. Their problem was to adapt English precedents to new conditions. They put as many obstacles as they could contrive, not in the way of the people's will, but of their whims. When Jefferson asked Washington why he consented to a second Chamber of Legislature, he answered, "To cool the first." He saw, as clearly as any man, the value of hereditary wealth as a security of refinement, the feeder of those arts that ennoble and beautify life. The ancestral halls of England had been nurseries of that culture which has been of example and benefit to all.'

When such are the sentiments of an enlightened and experienced American versed and distinguished in the literature and public service of the purest democracy the world has seen, emanating from ourselves, what inference may they not justly encourage us to make as to the strength of our institutions in combination with democracy? Shall we Englishmen suppose that the rising democratic spirit in this old country can do more than expand its constitution, when the aristocratic spirit of the old country has so indelibly kept its traces in a democracy gone out from it?

I hear men say-and have not good men spoken similarly at all former stages of the process?- All ancient landmarks will disappear under the invading tide. The Church, the Lords, the Throne, will fall before the sovereignty of the people.' But when the immediate interests of self or party are eliminated from the calculation, and the future prospects of the country alone considered, then the foundations appear strong against the tide.

At all events, changes in England are always very gradual, and by mutual compromise between still subsisting interests, not by subversive revolutions, of which we have had but one, and that brought about by a king. Government by free discussion is specially an English art, and its production is adaptation in the place of change. A great deal of the discussion perpetually going on is outside the walls of the Legislature. The whole nation is in constant parliament, and the free vent given to public opinion has a mellowing influence on the final legislation.

Mr. Morley lately wound up a wild tirade against the House of

Lords to this effect: But it must not be degraded; it is one of the old institutions of the country, which we can't afford to damage on the chance of getting something better to take its place.'

The upshot seems to be that the language of demagogues is not in accordance with the real thoughts and feelings of the country, however it may tickle their fancy. John Bull delights in good abuse of what he is, and of what he loves; but

Nought shall make us rue,

If England to itself do rest but true.

That is to say, if in admitting the growth of democratic strength and spirit into our constitution, each interest is maintained in representation, and the constituencies of the legislature are not only quotients from equal division of the mass.

NORTON.

IRRIGATION IN EGYPT.

DONE nothing in Egypt? Who says the English have done nothing there? It may form a good party cry for a Member of Parliament on his vacation stump; and it is not less true than many other party cries. But it is not true all the same. Is it nothing that for the last two years Egypt has witnessed a class of officials who scorn delights and lead laborious days, who toil as though it were for their own land, above all who speak the truth and cannot be bought? Is it nothing that the Egyptian has learned to understand that there are other Christians in the world besides lying Greek usurers, Syrian sneaks, and quarrelsome Maltese-above all, besides the pack of vampires that formed the fitting Court of the late Viceroy. English soldiers have for more than two years wandered through the bazaars of Cairo. If the English are so very unpopular there, how is it that there has never been one serious quarrel between them and the people? They gallop about the streets on donkeys. They go, in and out of the shops. They make their small purchases and pay their way like the honest lads they are, and they may fearlessly boast that neither man nor woman is the worse of their presence. Would it have been the same, do you think, had the army of occupation been French or Italian ?

The conscription remains, and the fellah is still dragged from his village to serve in the army. But it is no longer a hated slavery to him. Under Sir Evelyn Wood and his splendid staff of English officers he is regularly paid and well fed. The kourbash has ceased. In health the Egyptian soldier is kindly and justly treated. In sickness, those who passed through the cholera hospitals of 1883 will not soon forget how they were nursed and tended by their kindly English officers.

Egyptian hospitals and prisons are still not what they might be, and with an empty treasury they never can be; but ask any one who knows anything about it whether Sandwith, and Milton, and Hooker have not done noble work in the sanitary department-whether Crookshanks has not made the prisons almost too comfortable.

Be sure that the learning and patient labour of Professor Sheldon Amos on the bench at Cairo is not thrown away.

Be sure that Vincent and Fitzgerald are not labouring in vain in that most disheartening field of Egyptian administration, the Finance Department.

I will leave it to others to describe in detail what all these reforms have been, and will say a few words about the reform of one department of which I have had some opportunities of learning.

In Lord Dufferin's celebrated despatch on Egypt, he pointed out that no subject was of more vital importance to the country than the improvement of its irrigation system. The Egyptian question is a question of irrigation,' remarked Nubar Pasha long ago. But the reader may perhaps say surely that subject at least is one that the Egyptian understands. How otherwise could it be that from the

earliest times this marvellous land on which rain so seldom falls has been the granary of nations? Why should England begin teaching Egypt irrigation? This requires explanation.

The ancient wealth of Egypt has ever been its crop of corn. As surely as the seasons come round, so surely has the Nile risen, year by year. From the earliest time the valley of the Nile has been divided by earthen embankments into a succession of great flats, measuring occasionally as much as 100,000 acres. The rising flood is diverted by a series of short canals into these flats, where the water stands two or three feet deep until it has soaked the soil, and deposited its rich alluvial mud. By this time the Nile has subsided. The drying mud is rudely ploughed and sown, and four or five months after the crop is reaped. No rain has fallen on it, but the soil has been sufficiently saturated to require no further watering. A rich crop is produced, but by this system only one crop in the year, and during the summer months, when from its latitude and temperature one might expect Egypt to be yielding subtropical fruits, the empty fields lie baked and parched.

Muhammed Ali Pasha, whose genius and energy created modern Egypt, soon recognised that more might be obtained out of the soil than this one crop of wheat or beans. He set to work, therefore, in Lower Egypt to deepen the canals, so that they should flow in low as well as high Nile. His people were not long in discovering the benefits this conferred on them. Pumps and water-wheels soon lined the banks of the canals. Egypt became known as a cotton-producing country, and during the American civil war, twenty years ago, wealth poured into it. But this new system was a vastly more complicated one than that which it superseded. To suit the convenience of wealthy men, numerous canals were cut without system or arrangement. Complaints soon began that the crops were deteriorating: that the soil was being exhausted, no longer replenished by lying two months a year under muddy water.

In many places a salt efflorescence appeared on the surface fatal to vegetation.

In high Nile there was abundance of water for all, but in low Nile, just when the cotton crop wanted it most, there was least to be had, and then the peasant's poor little patch had every chance of being withered, while the pasha's broad acres were flourishing. Worst of all, this great network of canals was yearly filled with Nile deposit which had yearly to be removed, and an unpaid army of 60,000 peasants was employed for about half of every year effecting the necessary clearances.

In the long narrow valley of Upper Egypt, except in one portion, the old Pharaonic system of irrigation still prevails, and here the Egyptian has little to learn. In the Delta the new cultivation with perennial irrigation is practised, and in this, the richest part of the country, Lord Dufferin soon saw the gravest reasons for anxiety. A system had been created which the people did not understand. Ignorance of the most ordinary rules of engineering, indolence, and corruption were fast destroying the country.

Irrigation is an art which there is no occasion to practise in England. But there are few forms of agriculture which are not practised in one or another of Her Majesty's many possessions, and so it happened that from Northern India Lord Dufferin was able to obtain officers possessing the experience required in Egypt. In Northern India a system of canals exists far greater than in Egypt, and here too irrigation is practised when the heat is greatest and the canals at their lowest. The result has been the bestowal of earnest thought on the most economic distribution of water, and the canals and their adjuncts have been constructed with the greatest skill. It was to India, then, that Lord Dufferin looked for engineers to improve the irrigation of Egypt. First one officer was appointed to assume general charge, and in course of time he was joined by four assistants or inspectors, all trained in a good school, accustomed to hard work and to fearless exposure in a climate much fiercer than that of the Nile valley. From the first they have all received friendly support from His Highness the Khedive and from his Ministers, especially from their distinguished President, Nubar Pasha. many respects their work has been very similar to that which they have left in India, and so they have been able to do it with a certainty and precision which have proved of great value. But they have had their own difficulties to encounter. Nothing could be worse than the alignment of many of the canals. The engineer is perpetually hampered by vested rights, vested abuses. A new languageArabic-has had to be learned. Above all, they have been hindered by the absence of trustworthy native engineers. Muhammed Ali said he had been able to reform all classes of his people except two, the boatmen and the engineers. The Mohammedan has not yet learned to look on engineering as a learned profession worthy of a gentleman. The result is that, with a few exceptions, the Govern

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