360	REBELLION
towards the enemy, nor had he scrupled to employ
every weapon at his command to secure from t!v
Cotton Commission the most favourable prices, Ir
Egypt at one period had thought that the f'riitie,
Minister had betrayed her interests, that saapiclon
was long since dead. The nation now was convinced
on the contrary that he had been deluded by /pi onuses
of compensation at the close of hostilities/
But Rushdi Pasha was first and foremost <ni Egyp-
tian, and as little inclined to accept xiie rebuff which
the British Government had administered to Saad
Zaghlul as his fellow countrymen. He sought, there-
fore, for an excuse to range himself on the popular
side, and in a memorandum addressed to the President
of the Council by an Englishman holding high office
in the Egyptian Government he fo».'nd the oppor-
tunity. This document, harmless enough in itself,
and intended probably only to provoke discussion,
sketched a form of future government in Egypt which
would secure the existing rights of foreigners and yet
permit Egypt to control her own domestic affairs.
There was little new in these ideas. Many of them
had been advocated in Lord Cromer's Reports, and
the suggestion represented only the writer's personal
views. But the Prime Minister took the memorandum
amiss, and seized upon it partly as an excuse to resign.
Amid the turmoil, the Civil Service during these
painful days continued to transact the routine
administration of the country, until a situation arose
with which unaided they could not cope. The
financial year was drawing to a close and the day
approaching *when the existing Budget became dead
^1 In defending, from a Nationalist point of view, the actions of
Rushdi during these stormy years, Ahmed Fasha Zaki, formerly
Secretary General of the Council of Ministers, contributed recently
an article to the Abram, wherein he states that an undertaking of this
nature was given to the Prime Minister,