As an empire with vassal States, Morocco has passed indeed these many years; as an independent country, it is to-day little more than an unproductive territory peopled sparsely with disunited tribes, acclaiming several Sultans, supporting none, warring hopelessly against invaders. Like Turkey-in-Europe, this backward State on the borders of civilisation has long been doomed. Abdul Aziz made some feeble attempts to graft upon it Western institutions; but the change can be wrought by Western forces only and with modern arms.
CHAPTER XVI
THE BRITISH IN MOROCCO
Not very many of the European residents of Morocco are fond of the French invaders. Even, in many instances, Frenchmen hate them. They condemn consistently the disorders that the armies of France—the Spanish are not very active—have brought to Morocco; and still more they lament the influx of other Europeans, generally, as they point out, of the worst sort; dishonest speculators, adventurers and ‘dive’ keepers, unfortunately the usual vanguard of Western civilisation. Frenchmen of the old days are wont to sentimentalise about the ‘Moghreb defiled’; Germans have no love for the soldiers of France; Englishmen resent the subordinate position, which for three years they have been required to take.
In Eastern countries where Europeans are few, there is always intense rivalry and much bitter feeling between the races. In Morocco the great jealousy, until the signing of the Anglo-French agreement, was between the British and the French. For many years the agents of France and those of England, consuls as well as diplomatists, merchants, and even simple residents, had struggled against each other for trade, for social prestige, and for greater influence with the Sultan and the Moorish government. When the British Minister would go to Fez, the Frenchman was always prompt on his heels; nor did the former—though perhaps with more show of modesty—ever allow the Minister of France to get to his credit an extra visit or a larger present.
The intimacy between Kaid Maclean and the Sultan grievously annoyed the French, and they accused the Kaid of exploiting Abdul Aziz. On the other hand, though the Kaid was in the employ of the Sultan, he was engaged also to act as agent of the British government at the Maghzen. In loans and contracts the conflict was generally more between the Germans and the French; and on these occasions scandals of rival bribery and of diplomatic influence being brought to bear in the interests of the rival bankers or contractors, as the case might be, were always rife. British Ministers do not often aid the subjects of the King in gathering private contracts, and British interest in Morocco has always been primarily political. British trade with Morocco, actual or potential, was never of any considerable importance—except to the British traders in the towns of the coast, to whom the rivalry of course extended, growing often more acute.
In 1904 all this was changed by a stroke of the pen. England and France came to an understanding, the one waiving claims in Egypt, the other withdrawing politically from Morocco. The following year the German Emperor, who had not been consulted, volunteered an objection to the French scheme for policing certain coast cities and border towns and organising a Morocco State Bank. Intimidating the French—though Great Britain ‘agreed to support them in any attitude they should take,’ which meant, I am convinced, even to the extent of war with Germany—the Kaiser brought about a conference of the Powers, which came to be known by the name of the Spanish town at which it was held. The Algeciras Conference, after deliberating for months, finally in compromise decreed that France should be accompanied by Spain in her scheme, which was definitely limited.
The accord between France and England was a blow to British residents in Morocco. As long as they had been in the land they had held, in the fear and the regard of the Moors, the paramount position, and now that position was handed over to their foremost rivals. They felt that they as Englishmen could not consistently change their attitude at the dictation of their Government at home—nor did they change except for the worse.
Their jealousy has now turned to enmity, which is often intense. In the smaller towns French and British consular agents are not on speaking terms and avoid each other in the streets. Englishmen are friendly with the Germans, upholding the anti-French policy of the German Government and decrying the ‘weakness’ of their own, all the while sympathising with the unfortunate Moor and his disintegrating empire. To the large towns new consuls have been sent out, generally from both France and England, and new Ministers have gone to Tangier, and this makes things easier in diplomatic circles, where the French policy is supported consistently. Otherwise the same old merchants and residents are there, both French and English, with the same old hates.
How the Englishman rails against his Government! How he storms at the English Press! How he writes, in passionate language, in his Moghreb al Aksa, the little weekly English paper! I have in mind a thin, wiry little man, past middle age, who wears a helmet and dresses in a brown suit of tweeds. Having plenty of leisure he puts in much of his time writing for London papers; but they will have none of his spirited essays. So he prints them in the Moghreb. They are headed, ‘How Long Will England Close Her Eyes?’ ‘How Long Will the English Press Refuse to Print the Truth?’ ‘How Long Will the Patient Moor Refrain from Massacre?’—and such like. I suggested to him one evening as we sat with several other Europeans at a table at a new French café (it was not thoroughly consistent for the little man to patronise the place) that in all Morocco there were hardly enough Europeans to make a massacre, as massacres go in the East; were there fifty bonâ-fide Britishers in the land?
Fifty or a million, he replied vehemently, they had been sold by the Government at home. What an absurd thing to do, to hold the high hand in Morocco and pass it over to the French for relinquishing some paper claim on Egypt! But what could be expected from a man like the Earl of Lansdowne, himself half French? It was no use pointing out that the British Government on this occasion had sacrificed a few British subjects for what appeared to be the good of the many; that British exports to Morocco had never amounted to more than two millions a year; that the potential value of the country is not promising; that the French are treaty-bound to keep the open door; that the cost to France in money, to say nothing of blood, may never be repaid with revenues or even with trade.