Africa sells food-stuffs and raw materials. She wants staple manufactured goods and novelties in exchange. The figures of her trade show that she can buy little more than the equal of what she has to sell; hence the advantage to the seller who can distribute with one hand and collect with the other. It is a transaction with two profits, so that both margins can be made smaller, and competition with the single-handed salesman is made easier.
The more primitive these African peoples are, the more they are dependent upon and controlled by the administrative power. The more developed the country and easy of access, the more enlightened and advanced the people, the wider and less restrained is their market. To Egyptians and Algerians the people of the United States sell goods of the kind imported to amounts reaching into seven figures, while virtually nothing is sold in Tripoli, and only a few thousand dollars’ worth in Morocco, countries credited with at least two thirds the population of the first named.
The entire civilized world is vitally interested in the progress made by the European powers in their development of trade in northern Africa, for the time is coming when the benefits to the outside trader will not be apportioned according to nationality, control, or interest, but will be measured by competitive power alone. To bear this in mind is manifestly the greatest feature of modern statesmanship in the making of commercial treaties, for it is necessary to safeguard the future so that when the door opens by reason of pressure from within, there shall be equal chance for all. It was an insistence upon this principle which nearly brought war to Europe through the making of the Moroccan agreement between France and Germany. The latter won her point; she won it not only for herself, but for all others, including the United States, and the importance thereof justified the seriousness of the pourparlers which preceded the actual agreement.
It might be said with apparent justice that those who have borne the burdens of the pioneer should have preference as their reward, but such is not the lot of pioneers in these days of the new internationalism. The commerce and finance of the world is assuming a solidarity that admits of no nationality or preference, no matter what apparent claim one or another people may have upon it by reason of pioneer work in the earlier stages of development and organization.
Not long ago an English acquaintance of mine stopped me in the street in London and asked me what I thought of things in Morocco. He was a man of average intelligence and information, and in business for himself in a small way. The German war-ship Panther was then at Agadir, and there was much talk concerning this bold move on the part of the Kaiser.
“If I was not old,” he said, “I would go to Morocco. I was there fifteen years ago and saw something of the country. There is nothing between the valley of the Nile and Cape Verd that will compare with the wealth and productiveness of Morocco, and with opportunities for trading when Europeans are free to come and go in safety. This Agadir business is the beginning of new days for the land of the Moors. It is a very different country from what we know as northern Africa.”
That is the opinion of “the man in the street” in Europe, and it is the knowledge of the few venturesome traders who have prospected the country as widely as the Moors have permitted. They are a most exclusive people. Four years ago the American consul at Tangier wrote to his Government:
Despite the many centuries of life, Morocco has not been developed; it is almost virgin territory. Its forests and mines are intact. No railroads, no electric transportation, no telephones, no telegraph, the interior a wilderness, where even the sultan dare not go, and eight to ten millions of people are living in primitive style. Morocco has a choice climate, fine scenery, great wealth of earth and sky, vast supplies of precious metals, and the soil has never been more than scratched by the crude wooden plows of the people—a soil that will give them three crops a year. There are warm winds and sunshine for 300 of the 365 days of the year; 300,000 square miles of fertile farm and grazing land broken by majestic mountains, crossed by rivers, and bounded by the sea on two sides. There are vast forests and valuable shrubs, and the sea is generously supplied with fish.
Foreign adventure has obtained a slight and precarious foothold along the northern and western coasts, where there are excellent harbors. Tangier is the best known to the north, while on the west lie El Araish, Rabat, Casablanca, Mogador, Mazagan, and Safi; but the influence of these places extends barely forty or fifty miles inland. The great inland Northern trade capital Fez, and Marrakesh to the South, are as remote from foreign influence as the customs of the people differ from those of Europeans. Notwithstanding all this, the foreign trade of Morocco last year was over $20,000,000, or seven times that of Tripoli, for the possession of which two European powers calling themselves great are now at war.
The isolation of Morocco to the day, this year, that the French established themselves in Fez, is due absolutely to the self-sufficiency and hostile pride of the Moors, for their country lies in sight of Spain and is only three days from London. In the midst of the stirring affairs of the modern world Morocco has remained in truth a terra incognita. The pressure has been too great, however. Such isolation could not last; the advance-guards of the trade army of the world have penetrated the barriers, and with eyes glistening with eager lust of gain have told of what lies beyond. The future is no longer a matter of doubt. The French soldiers now bivouac in Fez, and changes are coming to Morocco even beyond the wildest fears of the warlike and gloomy-eyed Moors. As a rule, a strong foe makes a strong friend. In the degree with which they have so long successfully fought modernization, it is probable they will in time accept the inevitable with equal strength of character, and, aided by the natural wealth of their land, become the strongest and wealthiest of all the countries that bound the continent of Africa on the north, not excepting even that most limited but most fertile of all places on the earth, the valley of the Nile.