was instructed to pay him, from the moment of his arrival in the East.[453] Several Prussian officers, among them a certain Major von Moltke, destined to become very famous, were at this time serving with the Turkish army, to the re-organization of which, in preparation for the coming struggle, Palmerston unceasingly urged the Sultan to devote his whole attention. Whilst instructing Ponsonby to impress upon the Turkish ministers the necessity of increasing the efficiency of the army, Palmerston was intent on creating embarrassments for Mehemet Ali. The economic system, which he had established in Egypt, and which he was imposing upon Syria, presented an excellent field for hostile criticism. By often very equivocal methods the Pasha had gradually expropriated the former freeholders, and had converted them into his own tenants. He would then buy at a fixed rate their produce, and thus, before long, the sale of almost all articles of prime necessity became a monopoly of the State. At first his system appeared to work well, but, when he began to pile up his armaments, he met the increased expenditure which they entailed by reducing the price, which he had hitherto paid to the unfortunate occupiers of the soil. In order to compensate themselves these people were necessarily compelled to raise the price of all articles which the government did not take from them. In 1838 Colonel Campbell computed that, as the result of the Pasha's administration, articles of ordinary consumption in Egypt were from six to ten times dearer than they had been under the rule of the Mamelukes. Moreover, Mehemet Ali, ever since the year 1816, had been busily endeavouring to convert Egypt into a manufacturing country. With this object he had imported at great expense skilled workmen and machinery from France and England. The native labour required was obtained in the same manner as the army was recruited. Men, women and children were impressed and compelled to work in the factories. But by their unskilfulness they injured the machinery, nor did the articles which they turned out pay the cost of manufacture. The result of this experiment was that some 30,000 peasants, who might with advantage have been engaged in agriculture, were forced to labour unprofitably in the factories of the government. The Pasha, however, was too ignorant of the most elementary principles of political economy to understand the folly of these proceedings, in which he was encouraged to persevere by the foreign merchants, who sold him machinery or who bought his cotton and his indigo upon very advantageous terms.[454]