Simaika was so stunned by this unjustifiable accusation that he was struck dumb, and did not repeat the conversation he had had with Boghos Pasha just three months previously. He retired to his office, and just a few moments later was sent for by Scandar Pasha, who ordered him to go immediately to Aswan and remain there until further notice to investigate alleged large-scale fraud on the Aswan line. This was in July, when Aswan was excessively hot. When Simaika asked for a few days to make his travel arrangements, Scandar Pasha refused and ordered him to leave the next day. Simaika was shocked.
I went back to my office and sat reflecting. Is this my reward for having tried to do an old colleague a good turn, depriving myself by this act of a promotion I had not solicited?20
As fate would have it, just an hour later, Major Girouard, the new chairman, summoned him, and said his predecessor, Mr. Robertson, had left him a note in which he mentioned important reforms introduced in the railway accounts on Simaika’s initiative. He asked him to help draw up a code of rules and regulations regarding station accounts and other related matters. Simaika replied that Scandar Pasha had just ordered him to go to Aswan immediately and that he was afraid to disobey. The chairman told him to forget Scandar Pasha, and gave him the room next to his as his office. Simaika notes in his memoirs that Scandar Pasha seemed to reconsider his animosity after this incident. He changed his attitude toward Simaika entirely, becoming most friendly and inviting him to his house on numerous occasions.
A few months later, while spending his holidays in Port Said, Simaika received an urgent telegram from Major Johnston, who had just succeeded Major Girouard as chairman of the board, ordering him to return to Cairo at once. Upon Simaika’s arrival, Johnston informed him that a chief examiner of accounts of the government of India had been summoned to report on reforms that might be introduced into the Egyptian system. This gentleman had arrived a week earlier, had been unable to get any assistance from Rushdi Bey or Antoun Bey, and had informed the chairman that they did not seem to know much about their own work. Simaika was introduced to the official from India, Mr. McPherson, and together they visited stations, workshops, stores, the telegraph offices, and the port of Alexandria, discussing the reforms deemed most useful.
When it was time to prepare the annual budget, Scandar Pasha proposed the promotion of Antoun Bey to a higher grade of pay. McPherson, who was by then financial adviser to the board, took this opportunity to propose raising Simaika’s grade as well, and this was unanimously approved by the board. Soon after, Major Johnston had to return to England on urgent business, and it fell to Scandar Pasha to submit the budget to the Ministry of Finance. Sir Eldon Gorst, then financial adviser to the Egyptian government and the de facto prime minister of the Cromer era, naturally asked Scandar Pasha if any of the new promotions proposed could be dispensed with for the sake of economy. Scandar Pasha, who had clearly been biding his time to exact revenge on Simaika, suggested dispensing with Simaika’s promotion, and Gorst approved. On his return from the Ministry of Finance, Scandar Pasha handed the budget to McPherson, who noticed the alteration and asked Scandar Pasha for an explanation. Scandar Pasha told him that Gorst himself had made it for reasons of economy. McPherson took the budget to M. Barrois, and asked him to see Gorst at once and explain to him that this was the most deserved promotion of all those proposed. On meeting Barrois, Gorst said that he knew nothing of the merits of the different officials concerned, but had eliminated the promotion at the request of Scandar Pasha. At the insistence of Barrois, Simaika’s promotion was reinstated. When McPherson explained the matter to Simaika, he ended by saying, “No one will be more surprised at this than Scandar Pasha and it would serve him right.”21
Two years later, the board proposed appointing McPherson director general of accounts and audit. When this proposal was presented to the government, the members of the Caisse de la dette publique objected, saying that if a post of such importance were to be entrusted to a Briton, one of equal importance should be entrusted to a Frenchman. Lord Cromer responded, saying, “If there is no official in Railways who can fill this position, the Finance must send one of its high officials to fill the post and Mr. McPherson must return to India.”22
The Ministry of Finance proposed Boutros Pasha Mishaka for this new position, and it was arranged that he would work for three months with McPherson to familiarize himself with the work. At the end of this period, McPherson sent a confidential letter to the chairman of the board saying,
I have tried hard to explain Railway accounts working to Mishaka Pasha but he knows as little about these accounts after this lapse of time as when he first joined us. Railway accounts require a lifetime to know them thoroughly. I feel it is my duty before I leave to insist that Antoun Bey El Saheb should be pensioned off at once, that this post should be given to Simaika Bey, and I feel I must add that if there is a man in Egypt who can replace me efficiently it is he who not only knows the work thoroughly but who has over me the advantage of knowing the Arabic language and all the members of the staff, and who is unaware of my proposal.23
The chairman decided to act on McPherson’s suggestion. Simaika next received a visit from Mr. Bertrand, assistant secretary to the board, who said, “It has just been decided to put Antoun El Saheb on the retired list and to appoint you in his place. His class [i.e., pay grade] will be given to Missara Bey.”24
This angered Simaika, who wrote a confidential note to the chairman of the board stating that he had heard that it had been decided in principle to give him the post of Antoun al-Saheb, but that his grade and pay were to be given to Missara Bey. He wrote that the board members were the best judges as to the merits of the high officials under their control, but he did not think it fair that he should be given the responsibility of director general of accounts and audit and that the class and pay go to another official. He said he was quite prepared to undertake the duties of that other official and let him assume the work of chief auditor. The board reconsidered their decision and appointed him director general of accounts and audit on June 27, 1901, with the class attached to that post. He became the only Egyptian at the head of a department, and a very important one at that. It is to his credit that he thoroughly reorganized the accounts system of the Egyptian State Railways and the Port of Alexandria, rooting out deep-seated, endemic corruption and inefficiency in the process.
In 1899, the French attempted to challenge the British hold over Egypt and East Africa. They sent an expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile under Major Jean-Baptiste Marchand in a bid to gain control over the Nile River tributaries and force the British out of Egypt. This incursion was thwarted by Kitchener and a powerful flotilla of British gunboats. Tensions between Britain and France continued, however, until the Entente Cordiale was signed between Britain and France in 1904. France recognized Britain’s ‘special interest’ in Egypt, while Britain professed herself uninterested in Morocco. After the Fashoda incident and the subsequent Entente Cordiale, the French left the British a free hand in Egypt, and the British immediately assumed complete control of the administration of the country, deciding that all important departments should be effectively controlled by a British ‘adviser’ even if the titular posts were occupied by Egyptians. The one exception was the Antiquities Service, which had been headed by a Frenchman since Said Pasha had approved its creation in 1858 and appointed the French scholar Auguste Mariette as its director. The British conceded that the post of director of the Antiquities Service would continue to go to a Frenchman.
Soon