International Debt Commission
INTERNATIONAL DEBT COMMISSION
Established in 1876 to defend the interests of European creditors when Khedive Ismaʿil's Egypt went bankrupt.
Britain, France, Austria–Hungary, Italy, and later Russia and Germany had seats on the International Debt Commission, which was usually called La Caisse de la Dette Publique. The Caisse's insistence on putting the interests of European creditors first was a major cause of the deposition of Ismaʿil ibn Ibrahim and of the Urabist resistance of 1881 and 1882. After the British occupied the country in 1882, their administrators came to see the Caisse as an impediment to necessary financial and agricultural reforms. Britain's entente cordiale with France in 1904, however, removed most of the friction. The weight of external debt on the Egyptian economy lightened between the two world wars, with the importance of the Caisse declining accordingly. During World War II, sterling balances accumulated from Allied expenditures in Egypt essentially eliminated the problem of external debt until the 1960s.
see also ismaʿil ibn ibrahim; urabi, ahmad.
Bibliography
Issawi, Charles. Egypt at Mid-Century. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1954.
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