‘Prepare for me,’ said the Sultan, ‘a secret memorandum on the form of Government you would propose, the salaries to be paid to the Uzir and chief officers of my Court, to Bashas and other officials in the provinces. I will take it into consideration and commence gradually to introduce reforms in the administration of the Government of the provinces; and then I shall, in due course, introduce reform also at the Court by the payment of the Uzir, &c., and punish severely peculation or corrupt practices.’
I gave the Sultan a rough outline of the first steps that should be taken by payment of Governors and other functionaries to collect taxes and tithes—to be paid direct into the Treasury, and not through the Governors—recommending that receipts should be delivered to all persons who paid taxes, &c., and that these collectors should also be empowered to take all fines, imposed by Governors or Sheikhs on criminals, and pay them into the Treasury, which would tend to check the rapacity and injustice of Governors in imposing heavy and unjust fines, which at the present time they appropriate to their own use.
I reminded the Sultan that it was at my suggestion, when the Convention of Commerce of 1856 was concluded, that the salaries of the Customs Officers were greatly increased and, at the same time, steps taken to prevent the wholesale robbery of the receipts of Custom; and that he, the Sultan, had told me that, since my advice had been followed, the revenues derived from the Customs had greatly increased.
The Sultan said, ‘Yes, I remember, and also that I have said that since the conclusion of the Convention of 1856 with Great Britain, though we pay half the revenues of Customs to Spain on account of the war debt, and a quarter, on account of a loan received, to Great Britain, yet the amount of revenue paid into the Treasury at the present time is greater than before the conclusion of that Convention, and the trade of Morocco with England and other countries has trebled in value.’
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‘The day after this conversation with the Sultan,’ writes Sir John, ‘I left Marákesh. The camp was to be pitched about twelve miles from the city, and we started early in the morning. About an hour later, one of the escort, looking back, exclaimed, ‘I see a horseman coming along the plain at full gallop. I should think he is a messenger from the Court.’ And thus it proved.
‘I have been dispatched,’ said the breathless horseman, ‘by the Uzir, Sid Mohammed Ben Nis (the Minister of Finance) and the Sheríf Bakáli, who have been ordered by the Sultan to convey to Your Excellency a message from our Lord; and they wish to know whether they are to continue their journey to the camp or whether you might be disposed to await their arrival on the road?’
‘See,’ I replied, ‘there is a fig-tree near the road, I will sit beneath it and await the Uzir and the Sheríf: go back and tell them so.’
Sending on the rest of the party, I, with one of my daughters and two of the escort, awaited the functionaries, who arrived about a quarter of an hour after I was seated.
Ben Nis began the conversation as follows:—