No. 1109.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Cardwell.

No. 127.]

Sir: Your dispatch No. 201 of the 4th ultimo reports that you are “in receipt of a note from the minister of foreign affairs of the Egyptian [Page 1631] government, asking the adhesion of the United States to a proposed Khedival decree having for its object partial suppression of the Corvée.”

Your explanation of the nature of compulsory service for public works, known in Egypt as the “corvée,” and of the intent, scope, and effects of the projected legislation for its partial suppression, suggests that, like other Egyptian municipal measures to which the Khedival government has heretofore invited the adhesion of the United States, it does not directly concern this Government or its citizens, nor does it seem to call for any expression of approval or disapproval on our part.

I may, therefore, repeat, in this instance, the substance of the instruction sent to you on March 31, 1886 (No. 28), when our “adhesion” was asked to a Khedival decree permitting the temporary investment of certain trust funds at interest for the benefit of the Egyptian treasury, that while the Government of the United States has no practical concern in the subject-matter of such decrees, except to see that no discrimination against American citizens is proposed, and is not prepared to advocate the measures, and could not join in their enactment, yet as the withholding of adhesion on our part might embarrass the Khedive’s government and prevent its carrying out a domestic reform in its own interest, the Government of the United States, at the solicitation of that of the Khedive, gives this qualified assent, which you will properly make known to the minister for foreign affairs.

In this relation you may also consult the Department’s instruction No. 13, of January 7, 1886, concerning a decree for the levy of a house tax.

If anything in the foreign minister’s note to you or in the terms of the decree relative to the corvée should appear in your good judgment to conflict with the execution of this instruction, you will advise the Department accordingly and await further instructions.

I am, sir, etc.,

T. F. Bayard.