The form of Government in Morocco is the worst in the world. No officials except the Customs Officers are paid. The consequence is that all live by peculation, extortion, and bribery; or, in the words of a Moor describing the system, ‘We are like fishes—the big live by eating up the small.’ The population is reduced to misery by the avarice of the Governors, and the latter, who have to send twice a year large sums of money to satisfy the rapacity of the Ministers, are constantly killing the geese (the farmers) to get the golden eggs. No security for life or property, no encouragement to industry—and it is only a matter of wonder that the whole country is not allowed to lie fallow.
The people are a fine race; but, since the days when they were ejected from Spain and returned to Morocco to be subject to the rule of Sultans who are Pope-Kings, they have degenerated gradually and become a degraded people.
I am described by Mr. Allen as being all-powerful. If so, the inference naturally is that I have neglected to do my duty in requiring the Sultan and his Government to introduce reforms and improvements.
I have never ceased for nearly forty years to preach and pray, to urge and beg. My archives are full of notes addressed to Ministers of the Moorish Government, with suggestions and propositions for improving commerce, introducing railways, roads, telegraphs, mining operations, removal of restrictions on commerce, &c., &c. All this, however, to little purpose, for the venal advisers of the Sultan have no interest in reforms or improvements when they do not see a direct means of filling their own pockets. Promises are frequently made to me, but rarely fulfilled. I have lately received promises that the prohibition on the exportation of barley and wheat, now lying rotting in granaries, will be removed, and yet they hesitate and delay; and so it is with everything.
Yet I may conscientiously declare that the few improvements which have been effected in this country have been brought about through my representations and acts.
I have worked hard of late to obtain the revision of the Treaty of Commerce (of 1856), which has been agreed to by the Sultan; but still the old story of promise, pause, postpone, and then leave the matter alone.
I have frequently pointed out to my masters at home that if we consider it desirable that the independence and integrity of a neutral Sovereign like the Sultan should be upheld, so that the passage of our shipping through the Straits should remain free in time of peace or war, it is our duty, it is the duty of all those Powers who desire to maintain the status quo, to take a more active and decided part than they have done hitherto in requiring the Sultan and his Ministers to introduce reforms and improvements, and that the people of this country, who can be almost seen from the shores of Europe, should not be allowed to remain in their present degraded state—a disgrace to civilisation. But this is a totally different view of the question from that of allowing France to become the mistress of the great gut of commerce, where all our shipping must pass when bound for the East or for India, and to say to us Ne plus ultra.
Again on June 13, 1884, Sir John returns to the subject of French designs and British apathy:—
Papers will tell you much of passing events here, some correct, others, especially French, full of mis-statements. Did you see the Standard of June 3?
It contains an admirable article and a letter from ‘One who Knows.’