Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-19
PREPARING FOR WAR
Ugly Situation Ahead for Peo-
pie in Morocco.
FEz AND FRANCE At ODDS
Fighting Tribes Growing Stronger
and Buying Arms.
TIRED OF go PER CENT DEAL
sultan's Income Limited to What he
May Get After France Takes
That Amount.
FEz AND FRANCE At ODDS
TIRED OF go PER CENT DEAL
Special cablesram to The Star.

Special Cablegram to The Star.
LONDON, May 49, = The latest dis
patches from Paris indicate the possibility
OF the Moroccan situation assuming q
serious nature before long. Hostility to
France Is undisguisedly fierce. No com
promise with foreigners is the watchword
of the sultan's nominal subjects. French
Italian, English and German colonists have
fed from Marakesh to the coast. The sui
tan's threat to visit Marakesh Is laughed at
The chieftains Of the big tribes and the
Highland clans are buying up horses in
every market, partly for remounts, but also
go as to leave none for any foreign expedi-
ton. Every repeating rife. and some halt
a million are said to be In the country, is
being oiled and ball cartridges are nearly
double their normal price.
The Sultan's Authority.
The Pail Mall Gazette this afternoon gives
prominence to a letter from Mogador, writ
ten by an English resident, who says
Even the most authoritative news cabled
from Tangier wholly fails to give an idea
of what is going on throughout the Morocco
which knows neither sultan nor a foreign
office. European papers tell a great deal
of what France said to Fee and what Fe1
replied, and 1t seems to be taken for grant
ed that with the acceptance by the sultan Of
the French proposal there Is an end to the
trouble. Unless l very much mistake, the
trouble will be then only beginning. We
must realize the fact that the sultan's au-
thority outside the walls of Fee and the sea-
ports Is absolutely ignored by the vast mass
of his nominal subjects. His actual reve-
nue. is practically limited to what is left OF
the customs after the French have taken
their 60 per cent. The large provincial
tribute which his father was wont to collect
at the head of real army has dwindied to
paltry fraction of what it was fifteen
years ago.
Fighting Tribes Stronger.
s "All these years while the Moorish for
eign Office has been growing weaker the
great lighting tribes have become stronger
and more arrogant. Their savings instead
Of going to the Fec treasury have been in
vested In horses. rifles and ammunition.
The suggestion that they should help their
sovereign lord with military contingent
Is derided. Let him come to US II he can,
Ii their position. Thus after decade of
more or less practical Independence with
and cartridges the real fighting strength of
Morocco Is considerably greater than 1t
has been within half century.
Hostile to France.
these leaders of the national party re-
gard France with unqualified fierce hos
tility. i There is not dissenting voice. I,
would be futile 70. ignore the fact that
whatever the nominal sultan may say or do
IN Morocco the real fighting Morocco will
accept no compromise giving any foreign
power the right to administerxthe Internal
affairs OF Islam. So long as seaports only
are affected the resistance may continue
to be of the passive kind, but signs are not
lacking that any attempt to establish so
apparently harmless an institution as a
French hospital at Marakesh might easily
precipitate the outburst of a storm.
His Game to Play.
"The sultan's viceroy. Prince Abdul
Hamid, the nominal viceroy OF Marakesh.
has his own game to play. He has not the
power, even If he had the will, to resist
great popular movement. His strength is
not from Fee. but from the support of
nominal vassals Of the crown, who. how
ever willing they may -, to handle French
gold have no intention of submitting to
foreign .dictation.
Things have come to the present pass
1t would seem that France must make up
her mind either to retire and allow
Moroccan affairs to take their normal
course or give her advance agents free
hand to stir up a massacre whereby pre-
text would be found for further occupa-
tons of Moorish territory. What then?
More nassacres to be Immediately followed
by more occupations, and then the long
predicted holy war, grim and earnest.