The Holbrook news., 1911-10-20

roccan cat once more leaped out of the diplomatic sack into
 which 1t was hastily thrust by the panicstricken powers at Algeciras. As a result France. Germany and Engla3d have been filled with the most dreary forebodings, and all because Germany saw fit to send a gunboat to a little known but grow ing port on the coast of Africa.
 The coast of Africa has long been one of the storm centers of European diplomacy. It tempted the legionaries of old Rome and awakened in the bosom of Napoleon splendid dreams of empire. The colonizing nations of the present, especially England and France, have lost men and sunk money in its conquest. Morocco is the last tempting bit of land on the northern coast to maintain its integrity and there are indications that this last prize will soon pass under European control. Germany's possessions in Africa are relatively insignificant, rather burden than a benefit to her flnSncially. It is but natural that she should, wish to have some say about the future of Morocco. Her anxiety is the greater because her possessions in other parts of the globe are deemed insufficient to support the pretensions of German world-infiuence. If Ger many, when the time comes for the sultanate to fall. is to surrender her claims to France. she will take good care to assume such a position in the meantime that substantial compensa- ton can be demanded. Morocco is thus a pawn on the complicated chess board of diplomacy. But as such 1t is very useful to Germany.
 It is not a source of satisfaction to Germany that it was the triumph of her own arms which indirectly result ed in the expansion of French terri tory. France had established a pro tectorate in Algeria in 1880, but had taken on the whole a rather languid interest in the province. After the reverses of the Franco-Prussian war, however, a definite policy of colonial expansion to the immediate south was adopted as the surest way of regain ing lost prestige. It was the dream
 
 statesmen that a great new France might in time rise on the northern coast of Africa. The occupation of Tunis marked the first definite step after 1871 in the carrying out of. this policy.
 Meantime both England and France were engaged in Egypt. France had inherited from Napoleon certain po- litical interests in Egypt They were not highly regarded, but they enabled | her to drive a good bargain with Eng | land when the occasion arose. Mo rocco furnished this occasion. For | 800 miles the western boundary of Algeria marches with the eastern frontier of Morocco. The French | drove a thriving trade with Algeria and through Algeria with Morocco, a trade, however, that was menaced by | the constant turbulence within the Moroccan state. Peace in Morocco was very necessary to France; order could be insured only by European policing. In 1904. therefore, M. Del casse, then foreign minister of France, made overtures to England
  between the two powers. France en- gagged to recognize the exceptional po- sition of England in Egypt, and in return for this concession England agreed to leave France a free hand In Morocco This was the so-called agreement It was deep Iy resented by Germany.
 The resentment of the Wilhelm strasse, after smoldering for some eliminated in 1905 in the fiery outbursts of the kaiser at Tan gier. This outburst presently set by the ears, for the kaiser de- clared that Germany was prepared to protect her commercial rights in and to guarantee the political integrity of Morocco. This amounted to an ad- mission that Germany distrusted the motives of France. choosing to believe