The Chamber of Deputies and the First Joint Note

07The Chamber of Deputies and the First Joint Note

The Chamber of Deputies (December 1881)

• A number of the country's notables submitted a memorandum for creating a chamber of deputies on the model of Europe's assemblies, and the Chamber opened after elections in December 1881.
• It consisted of the notables with local loyalties in the provinces, and was empty of merchants, industrialists and the highly educated — so it did not differ from the Council of Deputies of Isma'il's day.

Foreign intervention: the First Joint Note (January 1882)

• England and France saw the formation of the Chamber as a danger to their interests and sent a Joint Note (January 1882) whose wording hinted at displeasure at a parliamentary regime, and stated expressly that events required intervention to protect the Khedive's throne.
• Sharif protested officially; the officers resented its tone and believed it was aimed at them.
• After the two states failed to cancel the Chamber, they asked that its regulations not include the right to discuss the budget, because that concerned the debts and would embarrass Sharif's position.
• The Urabis clung to the Chamber's right to approve the budget as a right of the nation, and it appeared to them that Sharif was working to exclude them.