duced her to appropriate Tuat
and Figig, and had the fortune of war been against us, Morocco would
have been French already. These facts must not be overlooked in
discussing what was our wisest course. We were unprepared to do
what France was straining to do: we occupied the manger to no one's
good--practically the position later assumed by Germany. Surely we
were wiser to come to terms while we could, not as in the case of
Tunisia, when too late.

But among the objecting critics one class has a right to be heard,
those who have invested life and fortune in the Morocco trade; the men
who have toiled for years against the discouraging odds involved, who
have wondered whether Moorish corruption or British apathy were their
worst foe, in whom such feeling is not only natural but excusable.
Only those who have experienced it know what it means to be defrauded
by complacent Orientals, and to be refused the redress they see
officials of other nations obtaining for rivals. Yet now they find all
capped by the instructions given to our consuls not to act without
conferring with the local representatives of France, which leads
to the taunt that Great Britain has not only sold her interests in
Morocco to the French, but also her subjects!

The British policy has all along been to maintain the _status quo_ in
spite of individual interests, deprecating interference which might
seem high-handed, or create a precedent from which retraction would be
difficult. In the collection of debts, in enforcing the performance of
contracts, or in securing justice of any kind where the policy is to
promise all and evade all till pressure is brought to bear, British
subjects in Morocco have therefore always found themselves at a
disadvantage in competition with others whose Governments openly
supported them. The hope that buoyed them up was that one day the tide
might turn, and that Great Britain might feel it incumbent on her to
"protect" Morocco against all comers. Now hope has fled. What avails
it that grace of a generation's span is allowed them, that they may
not individually suffer from the change? It is the dream of years that
lies shattered.

Here are the provisions for their protection:

Art. IV. "The two Governments, equally attached to the principle
of commercial liberty, both in Egypt and Morocco, declare that
they will not lend themselves to any inequality either in the
establishment of customs rights or other taxe