DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0257
241
to the payments to be made in specie to the imperial treasury ;
so that he was enabled from time to time to desist from his pecu-
niary demands upon the people, the better to enable them to
bring in the stated quantity of corn; but this pretext likewise
led the way to infinite abuses. Although the payments in
money ought to have equalled two thirds of that in kind, Justi-
nian complains in his edict that they were frequently reduced to
nothing, wholly absorbed in pretended expenses, and pillaged
by the secret understanding of the Egyptian tax-gatherers and
the public agents. It is scarcely possible to conceive the moral
weakness of a government, which knew not how to put a stop
to evils of this nature, with all the military means of the empire
at their disposal, and no ostensible resistance to their opera-
tion, but the bare principle of corruption. These deductions
from the tax demanded by the government, which nearly equalled
their amount, appear the more extraordinary, as we find in the
same edict of Justinian, that throughout every village and dis-
trict the inhabitants were liable to other calls for the maintenance
of the canals and dykes, public buildings, and the salaries of
subaltern agents.
The author * of the Essay from which the greater part of these
observations are taken, is induced to suggest whether the public
accountants of those times may not have acted on the system
now pursued under the Turkish establishment; who make an
annual charge of near thirty thousand livres for the transport of
the dirt and rubbish of Cairo to the sea coast, while it is notorious
that not a single boat is employed upon this service.
The duties of export and import in Egypt, which must have
formed a considerable part of the revenue, particularly as long
as it continued the emporium of goods between Europe and In-
* Reynier—L' Egypte sous ks Remains.
2 i
1S07.
dia.
to the payments to be made in specie to the imperial treasury ;
so that he was enabled from time to time to desist from his pecu-
niary demands upon the people, the better to enable them to
bring in the stated quantity of corn; but this pretext likewise
led the way to infinite abuses. Although the payments in
money ought to have equalled two thirds of that in kind, Justi-
nian complains in his edict that they were frequently reduced to
nothing, wholly absorbed in pretended expenses, and pillaged
by the secret understanding of the Egyptian tax-gatherers and
the public agents. It is scarcely possible to conceive the moral
weakness of a government, which knew not how to put a stop
to evils of this nature, with all the military means of the empire
at their disposal, and no ostensible resistance to their opera-
tion, but the bare principle of corruption. These deductions
from the tax demanded by the government, which nearly equalled
their amount, appear the more extraordinary, as we find in the
same edict of Justinian, that throughout every village and dis-
trict the inhabitants were liable to other calls for the maintenance
of the canals and dykes, public buildings, and the salaries of
subaltern agents.
The author * of the Essay from which the greater part of these
observations are taken, is induced to suggest whether the public
accountants of those times may not have acted on the system
now pursued under the Turkish establishment; who make an
annual charge of near thirty thousand livres for the transport of
the dirt and rubbish of Cairo to the sea coast, while it is notorious
that not a single boat is employed upon this service.
The duties of export and import in Egypt, which must have
formed a considerable part of the revenue, particularly as long
as it continued the emporium of goods between Europe and In-
* Reynier—L' Egypte sous ks Remains.
2 i
1S07.
dia.