THE CORVÉE
From time immemorial the peasantry of Egypt have been liable to
the corvée in some form or other. In a country depending for its
existence upon the proper maintenance of its dykes, it was only
natural that the whole population should turn out to perform the
necessary work. But a useful custom very easily degenerated into
a galling slavery under Oriental despotism. Rulers with absolute
power of life and death over their subjects, who regarded the land
they ruled as their own personal property, could not be expected to
make much distinction between works carried out for the general
good and those designed merely for their own convenience and
aggrandisement. The Pyramids and others of the mighty remains of
ancient Egypt stand as monuments of the greatness of the Pharaohs,
but no less of the miseries of countless generations under the
system of forced labour, which is known in our time as the corvée,
a term applied sometimes to the forced labour itself, and sometimes
to those who perform it.
In the early chapters of the Book of Exodus there is a brief but
pregnant description of the sufferings of the Israelites when
subjected to the burden.
‘And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:
‘And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter,
and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their
service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.’
‘And Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their
officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make
brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And
the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay
upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof. Let there more work
be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein.’
‘And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works,
your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the officers of the
children of Israel, which Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them,
were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task
in making bricks both yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?’
‘And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were
in evil case.’
‘And the Lord said, I have also heard the groaning of the children
of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage.’
‘But the children of Israel hearkened not unto Moses for anguish
of spirit, and for cruel bondage.’
Doubtless the amount of forced labour varied from time to time,
according to the ambition or the caprice of the rulers of the
country. But the annual necessity for watching the dykes during the
flood, and repairing them when it was over, never permitted the custom
to fall into disuse, and the knowledge that this great instrument was
always ready to hand must have been a powerful incentive to any King
or Caliph who wished to send his name down to history as the author
of a mighty work. No wonder that after so many centuries of practice
the Egyptians are the most patient and efficient spade-workers in
the world. The wretched peasantry of Egypt must have blessed the
accession of the undistinguished Sovereigns who had no desire to add
to their fame either by building at home or by conquest abroad. To
them the glories of a Rameses or an Amenemhat must have been small
compensation for their ‘anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.’
So long as basin irrigation continued to be universal, there was
much to be said on behalf of the corvée, if the system was justly
and impartially administered. During the months of the flood, and
those preceding it, when the land was lying dry and baked, there
was little or nothing for the agricultural population to do except
to clear the shallow flood canals, repair the dykes, and protect
the river-banks. If the labour was compulsory, it was, at any rate,
everybody’s interest to perform it. The work lay at their own door;
they were not dragged away to a distant province. There must always
have been abuses in practice. The humbler folk did more than their
share, and so on, but in theory it was not bad.
All this was changed with the introduction of perennial irrigation and
the digging of the summer canals. Owing to their depth, and sometimes,
also, to their faulty construction, the silt deposits in them were
very great, and the whole corvée was called out to clear them,
though very few were interested in them. More than that, a man’s
own home was no longer the scene of his labours. The labourers
of one province were called in to work in another. Each year the
corvée worked from January 15 to July 15, clearing the canals and
repairing the banks. From August 1 to November 1 they guarded the
Nile banks in the flood. Every year an extensive programme of work
was sketched out, but before it was finished they had to hurry off
to flood-protection duty. Not only unpaid, they had to find their
own tools, and provide their own commissariat, a double hardship
on men out of their own neighbourhood. During the flood, when they
lived in booths built for themselves on the Nile banks, they had
to find their own lanterns, and even, like the Israelites of old,
their own straw and brushwood, to save the dykes from the action of
the waves. New works were carried out in the same fashion.
Nor was this the sum of their grievances. The increase of summer
irrigation made the months immediately preceding the flood a
very busy instead of a very slack time of year. The value of the
cotton crop made everyone most anxious to secure it, so the larger
proprietors kept their tenants at home for that purpose. The numbers
of the corvée decreased, and the burden of it fell more and more
upon the poor fellaheen. Ministers and high officials from the
Khedive downwards employed the corvée to work on their own private
estates. Other persons, influential by station or by bribery,
secured the like advantage, and robbed their humble neighbours of
their labour, their last remaining possession. Under Said Pasha the
corvée dug the Suez Canal. Under Ismail they dug the Ibrahimiyah
Canal, the sole object of which was to benefit his private estates
in Upper Egypt. Even the splendid carriage-road that runs from Cairo
to the Pyramids of Gizeh was raised on the same foundations that the
Empress Eugénie might travel there in comfort after the opening of
the Suez Canal.
Only a nation inured to slavery could have endured it. Many, indeed,
labouring under the burning sun, unpaid, unfed, and unclothed,
succumbed. But what did that matter when other human beasts of burden
were there to take their place? The activity of the survivors was kept
up by the whip, the traditional motive-power in Egypt. Nominally,
all between the ages of fifteen and fifty were liable to serve, but
there were a multitude of exceptions, including teachers, holy men,
students, certain classes of tradesmen, and others. The law of 1881
laid down that anyone might exempt himself by providing a substitute
or by paying a cash ransom. But as there was no penalty imposed
for not paying, every man of any position freed himself from the
obligation without paying the tax, and the whole burden of the corvée
fell more than ever on the poorer classes. The régime of the kurbash,
or whip, and the grosser abuses of the system, vanished immediately
upon the English occupation, but all the earthwork maintenance was
still performed by this unpaid labour.
It was, as I have said, the spectacle of the dumb misery of the
fellaheen that particularly stimulated the English engineers in
their task of repairing the Barrage. The first relief came in 1884,
when the Nile was held up to a higher level at the Barrage. This
had a twofold effect, for the canals did not require to be cleared
to so great depth; and the higher level of the water enabled them to
be laid on a better slope, which diminished the deposit of silt. In
fact, the partial use of the Barrage in 1884 reduced the amount of
silt deposit by 26 per cent. In 1885 the first step was also taken
in a new direction: £30,000 were advanced towards the experiment
of clearing some canals in the provinces of Menoufia and Gharbiah by
contract. As usual, the gloomiest forebodings were uttered on every
side. It was said the fellaheen would not work voluntarily. The
whip alone was the only stimulus to which they were sensible. The
experiment was bound to fail.
Once more the croakers were wrong. The fellah justified the confidence
of Mr. Willcocks and his colleagues, that he was not unlike other
men, and would work gladly for a wage. And so the struggle for
emancipation went on with increased vigour. In 1886 £250,000 were
provided by the Caisse for the reduction of the corvée, so that
while in 1883 107,000 men had been called out in the Delta alone,
in 1887 the number had been reduced to 27,500. Finally, December,
1889, saw the last of the system, and the performance of earthwork
maintenance by the corvée was finally abolished. The Government
supplemented the £250,000 a year received from the Caisse by another
£150,000. In former days the labour required to clear the canals was
estimated in the Delta alone at £530,000. For the sum of £400,000
Egypt got rid of the burden throughout the whole country. It was
a bargain well worth making at a far higher cost. No greater boon
could have been conferred upon the fellaheen. No longer are their
lives made ‘bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick,
and in all manner of service in the field.’ That ‘evil case’
is ended. They labour indeed, but it is voluntary labour, without
‘groaning and anguish of spirit.’
The Government, of course, retains the right to call out the corvée
in case of any grave national emergency, and every year, too, it is
called out to guard the banks in flood-time. But the flood-corvée is
cheerfully borne. It entails no hardship on the people. Its incidence,
too, has been very much diminished, as the following figures show
(the period of service is 150 days):
_Year._ _Number of Men called out._ _State of River._
1888 59,000 Low flood.
1889 50,000 Medium flood.
1890 48,000 „
1891 45,000 „
1892 84,000 Very high flood.
1893 33,000 Low flood.
1894 49,000 High flood.
1895 37,000 Medium flood.
1896 26,000 „
1897 11,000 Low flood.
1898 19,000 High flood.
1899 8,000 Very low flood.
1900 14,000 Low flood.
1901 9,000 „
1902 5,000 Very low flood.
The figures tell their own tale. Experience and good organization have
enormously decreased the number of men called out, so that it is now
but a very slight burden upon the people. The date of calling out has
also been altered to August 15 instead of August 1. The possession
of the Soudan, and an accurate record of the state of the gauges in
those regions, will also assist in making more accurate forecasts
of the nature of the flood. In 1900 more men were called out than
were required, because the flood came down early and promised to be a
high one, but failed to fulfil expectations. The levels in the Soudan
were known, but, there being no previous experience to judge them by,
no inferences could be drawn from them. But the Soudan readings will
be more and more useful as time goes on.
But even apart from this, there is great hope of a steady diminution
in the numbers called out, and even that, except in years of high
flood, the corvée may not be required at all. The record of the
year 1901 is of remarkable promise in this respect. North of Cairo
no corvée was called out at all, for the first time in the history
of Egypt. The flood was low, but not exceptionally low. In any
year Upper Egypt is responsible for far the greater number, and
this is largely due to the extent of the basin banks which have to
be guarded. It is remarkable that the two districts in which the
greatest number were called out were in charge of native Egyptian
inspectors, who were no doubt influenced by the old tradition that
vast numbers of men should be employed. At any rate, as perennial
irrigation increases in Upper Egypt, fewer men will be required,
concurrently with the disuse of the basin dykes. And it seems likely
that in years to come the whole task will be performed by contract
labour; though the power of calling out the corvée will always be
held in reserve in case of any specially dangerous flood. But in
such a case the difficulty will be rather to prevent the work from
being hindered by excessive numbers. There will be no doubt of the
willingness to serve of practically the whole population.