HISTORY GONE WRONG? 407cratic complications within the mills (antipilferage measures) made
even lubrication a monumental task. In a sandy, dusty climate, bad
maintenance spelled disaster.* More and more of the machines fell
idle. Standard repair took the form of cannibalization. "For the small
number of machines [the mills] contain, they are much more spacious
than necessary."^17 Thus output fell, as it should have.
The British, in other words, had no reason to fear the competition
of Egyptian manufactures. In spite (or because) of absurdly low wages,
Egyptian costs were higher; and for all the fineness of the raw mater
ial, the quality of the final product was lower. But the British were im
mensely vexed by Ali's monopoly of the export cotton crop and by the
barriers to import of foreign cotton goods into Egypt. So, with the
help of the viceroy's own miscalculations and extravagant political am
bitions, they forced free trade upon him.
Scholars of "progressive" bent see this as the assassination of Egypt's
industrial revolution, or at the least a measure that stalled Egyptian in
dustrialization for another century. The assumption here is that indus
trialization cannot succeed without "tariff protection, tax exemptions,
rebates on transport rates, cheap power, special credit facilities to cer
tain sectors, educational policies, etc., which only a government en
joying a large measure of political and fiscal independence can
provide."^18
My own sense is that all of this is wishful thinking. Muhammad Ali's
Egypt ready for an industrial revolution? No. His grand project al
ready lay moribund when the new commercial treaty went into effect.
To be sure, the old pasha went on investing in industrial plant right up
to his death in 1848; but the military incentive was gone, and he was
just throwing good money after bad. Nor did tariffs hold the key. The
Japanese had no protective tariffs from the 1850s to the new century.
They were not happy about this. But they prospered. (Note that the
anti-imperialist historians want to have it both ways: now they com
plain that Egypt could not shelter its infant industries; now they boast
that these industries were doing so well that they could sell their prod
ucts abroad and that their European competitors were quaking before
them.)
All of this is fantasy history. Some of it reproduces an earlier time's
enthusiasms: Muhammad Ali seemed to many of his contemporaries an
- Saint-John, ibid., p.415, speaks of "the peculiar nature of dust, consisting of fine
silicious atoms, which the most compact building, and the best glazed windows could
never prevent from collecting in great quantities."