successive steps passed under the joint guardianship of Europe. It was an accepted principle of international law that no change of territory, not even if it came after a victorious war in the Treaty of San Stephano, could take place without the consent of Europe, and a European conference was necessary to determine any new stage. This began for Turkey when the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi was challenged. It was accepted for Egypt from the days of Mohammed Ali. Even the conquest of Algiers needed European acceptance. The transfer of Tunis was the fruit of a secret agreement of France with Germany, which came later to be the subject of mutual compacts. This experience of the ill feeling awakened by the failure to consider European relations was a warning that any other change in the Mediterranean would meet with protest. Morocco had been excluded from this horizon. The long tangle of despatches, conventions, treaties and mutual protests which had attended the exerise of exterritoriality in the empire under prescriptive right rather than the precise regulations which established it in Turkey led to the Madrid Conference in 1880, in which this country was for the first time allied with Europe in the affairs of Morocco. In the Madrid Conference general rules were laid down as to the exercise of exterritoriality in Morocco. But this dealt solely with the subject as it related to those resident in Morocco. It had no bearing upon the international and diplomatic relations of the empire. This, it was believed, could be settled by the joint agreement of France, Spain and England. Germany however early began to interfere. As soon as the sultan, Mulai el Hasid, died in 1894-it is believed by many that are well informed that a cable despatch from the German emperor prevented France from carrying out its intention of seating the descendant of Sheriff of Wasan on the throne. While no official proof exists it is so generally believed and so well accredited that I do not think that anyone questions that the succession in 1894 was kept in the present family by the interference of the Kaiser. The accession of the new sovereign, Abdul Aziz, was used in 1894 and 1895 to collect damages from the Moorish government on behalf of German subjects by summary

means, which included a Dutch-German demonstration in the waters of Tangiers, bitterly resented by France and criticised by the two French papers which spoke most directly for the Coeur de Lion in terms which led to the prompt threat of the use of force by Germany in the official press of that empire. For nearly ten years 1895-1905 two contrary policies went on in the empire. Germany extended its trade rapidly, overtaking that of England, multiplied its consular agents, gave its ministry in Tangier a new importance, and encouraged the travel and exploration of Germans throughout the empire. German scientific journals teemed with papers upon the country, which rapidly made them the chief source of opinion upon a subject which had long been exclusively held by French and English explorers. France on the other hand steadily continued to extend its frontier, occupied in 1901 Igli and Tuat, holding one of the great caravan routes out of Morocco to the southeast, and in 1903 an agreement between France, Spain and England provided for a Moorish debt, of which ten million pesetas was yielded to Spain, fifty million francs to France, and England made a party to the transaction under which France was to have the right to collect Moorish customs in case there was a default in the interest, which was reasonably certain. There instantly followed over the entire Moorish empire a series of outbreaks which made roads even two days' journey out of Tangiers dangerous and closed much of south Morocco to European travelers, though German merchants still passed to and fro on the coast between Morocco City or Fez without challenge. For two years longer these opposing theories of the position of Morocco continued. Germany, by one accident and another, asserted its independence of all agreements among the three powers which had so long. monopolised the diplomatic relations of Morocco, and France continued to act as the French foreign minister declared, as a country which had "particular" and exclusive rights in the empire. The German theory had on its side the course of events in the East during the last century. The French theory was supported by a related series of acts and facts and agreements from 1844 to 1905, which in the opinion of all English

comment the English government had placed Morocco completely under French influence. Of the bitter and energetic antagonism felt throughout Morocco in regard to this theory and policy of France there can be no question whatever. Ignorant as most Moors seem to the passing traveler, those who know the East are aware that the fact that a man cannot read or write does not change the strength of his brain, and a complete lack of acquaintance with all modern science may co-exist in a ruler or administrator, governor or minister, with a clear and statesmanlike conception of the risks which any course will have for his own country. This is familiar to us in mediæval history, but it is almost impossible for the average modern observer to realise that the same phenomenon exists today in all oriental lands like Morocco.

All Morocco seethed with opposition over the debt of 1903. The Pretender carried his tribal levies up to the gates of Fez. Rais Uli, who captured during his power all nationalities but the German, held the north of Morocco. Following the historical precedents of the past, the elder son of the Sultan, who had failed to secure the succession and had been banished to a distant town beyond the Atlas, rose as Pretender and marching from the southern part of Africa was aided at every turn by the German merchants of Fez. Every tribe asserted its petty independence and every petty lord ceased to send tribute to the capital. Morocco was not only plunged into hopeless and hapless disorder, but the fighting spirit of the land was aroused and it became clearer than ever that the peaceful usurpature which M. Delcassé had promised France was wholly impracticable.

At this moment, in July, 1905, the Kaiser uttered his memorable words at Tangier and dramatically asserted German policy. There is a passage in Kinglake's "Crimea" in which he points out how one great general and another has turned the tide of battle by suddenly appearing at the critical moment so far within the apparent lines of his enemy that their defeat and headlong retreat was brought about by the spectacle. A similar keen sense for the center of the world's stage and the exent to which diplomacy is a matter of senti

ment guided the German Emperor when he suddenly asserted on Tangiers the German right to share in the disposition of Morocco. At no time was there any reason to suppose that Germany expected seriously to control Morocco, though a port may have been in mind. But it was easy, by a German loan to the Sultan, by clandestine aid to Mulai Hafed on his march from the south, by contract secured for works in Tangier, by local intrigue in Casa Blanca, and finally by forcing the Algeciras Convention, to make the acquisition of Morocco by France a source of weakness, expense, and loss, instead of gain and advantage.

In the conflict which had come, in which neither side cared for the principle in the case, in which the ethics of international acquisition were on the side of France and the broad policy of international action on the side of Germany fnal success was certain to rest with the power which at the last resort was willing to mobilise its army in order to secure its end. When this became clear in the autumn of 1905, the fall of Combes and Delcassé was certain and the defeat of France. Taking diplomatic advantage of the Conference of 1880 in which Germany was represented, Germany insisted upon a conference which was first to be held in Berlin. Spain, which has had the dubious advantage of having all conferences in regard to Morocco held within its territory, succeeded with some difficulty in securing the assembly at Algeciras, selected so that the presence of a conference at Madrid should not give moral support to Spain in Morocco. The full history of the conference at Algeciras yet remains to be written. The United States had come conspicuously forward in rescuing Perdicaris, captured by Rais Uli, surrender only effected when France found itself face to face with the possibility of the use of force by the United States in Morocco. In the conference at Algeciras the American representative, by temperament and personal relations in sympathy with monarchial and not republican Europe, played an important part in the adjustment, which was a substantial defeat for France. The real issue at Algeciras was not as to details but as to whether France should appear alone in the task of pacifying and developing Morocco, or whether France

should be only one of several powers with equal powers, with equal rights, speaking for revolt. In a country like Morocco diplomatic control rests with power over the national treasury and occupation of the national ports and customs. The new Morocco debt service was divided between the Bank of England, the Bank of Spain, the Bank of France, and the Bank of Germany, with extra shares for those French bankers who had advanced the previous loan whose protocol provided that all future loans to Morocco should pass through French hands. This gave France a majority in the Commission but it gave Germany the opportunity for interference, an interference at once made visible by the appearance of German officers to drill the Sultan's army, by a small loan, by mining concessions, and by a contract in Tangier. Morocco narrowly escaped massacre in the outburst over the proposed French control in every port where Europeans dwelt, and in Tangier alone there are Spanish, Italian, and foreigners of every nationality, a population between eight and ten thousand living as completely under its own laws as a foreign settlement at Sharghai. The Convention of Algeciras agreed upon a gendarmerie which Spain was to command near its own scanty holdings, which France and Spain were to hold at Targier and France along the coast. Germany was here excluded, a victory for France in point of detail, but this exclusion still rendered it possible for Germany to obstruct the organization of this force. A long tangle of negotiation followed. On July 31, 1907, there came a trivial riot at Casa Blanca, preceded by the murder of Dr. Marchand in Morocco City, the French representative, which offered an opportunity for France to act. The needless brutality with which Casa Blanca was shelled was a massacre out of all proportion, more criminal than the nine lives which were sacrificed in a street brawl. Nothing could have been worse for France than to have been forced to occupy Casa Blanca first with the joint French and Spanish army and later with the French Algerian force alone. The cost has been heavy, the prodigious difficulty of any operations in Morocco has been exposed to French public opinion, always opposed to military