The world does not form a favourable opinion of the result of the prospect they held out of introducing civilisation and prosperity. Instead we have murders, robbers, and the fanatical feelings of a quiet inoffensive people roused. A gentleman who resides in Algeria describes the treatment of the Arab population in the interior there before the insurrection, as being as hard as that of the poor people in this country.
Hundreds extort money and grind down the Mohammedans. I dare say we were as bad in India years ago.
Sir John was at this time more than usually despondent of the future of Morocco, for another of his favourite projects for the improvement of trade had met with a complete check. Ever since the Commercial Treaty of 1856 he had continuously urged on the Moorish Government the importance of allowing the exportation of grain. All his efforts were, however, without result until 1881, when a half-hearted trial of the new system was made. Unfortunately in this year a prolonged drought, with consequent failure of crops, resulted in a famine, and the superstitious Moors at the Court at once concluded that the Deity was angered at the innovation, and they therefore refused to renew the permission to export grain in following years.
The results of the famine were, in other ways, most distressing. The peasantry, fired by the prospect of a larger market for their grain, had greatly extended cultivation, and many square miles of land, barren before, had been ploughed and sown, and, with the usual improvidence of a poor and thoughtless race, they had raised money from usurers on their ungrown crops. Thus with the complete failure of these crops, nearly the whole population of the immense arable plains of Morocco were reduced, not only to beggary, but to absolute starvation.
Once more Sir John proceeded to the Court, and endeavoured to rouse the Moors to action.
‘We are off to-morrow,’ he writes on March 28, 1882. ‘H.M.S. “Salamis,” takes us to Dar-el-Baida, then we go to Marákesh by land. Sultan sends escort, &c., &c. to meet us. The French have preceded us, Italian and Spanish Ministers follow. These Missions are like locusts eating up the country, and, alas! no rain falls, and failure of crops and consequent famine are menaced. . . .
‘A fierce stand has been made against modification of the scale of duties by this stupid people. But I have other fish to fry at the Court. Sysiphus will continue to roll up his stone to the last.’
Sir John in this letter refers to the system of ‘mona’ levied on the provinces through which the Missions pass. In times of scarcity the tax falls very heavily on the unfortunate peasantry. The Kaids order much more than is required, and they and the dependants of the Mission often divide the spoil. Sir John always did what he could to mitigate this evil, fixing the amount of provision required, and appointing one of his staff to watch the distribution. Any surplus was sold by auction each day, and the proceeds given to the poor of the district. The Spanish Minister adopted the same system on his visit to the Court at this time.
The next letter shows him immersed in business at Marákesh.
Dar-Mulai-Ali, Marákesh, April 21, 1882.