The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1894.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 142, 15 June 1894, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1894.

For the cawffl that lull msistenes, fcr^tlu wranf that nttda ratsiuum, Fer th« tatan in the Oiitanct, An* tha «wd that m can <U.

Spain and France, who are both interested, and especially the former country, in the preservation of order in Morocco and the adjacent parts of Africa, hare found it necessary to take upon themselves the duties of police in the disordered Sultanate; and it is most probable that England, who does the largest trade with Morocco, will join them, should it be found necessary. Whether the trouble has been exaggerated or not, there is said to be great excitement in Spain, and the Spanish settlements in Morocco are being reinforced. It is only the other day that Spain settled her last quarrel in Morocco, and the business was by no means an easy or a speedy one; and she had only to contend with the Riff tribes then, not with the whole country. The Sultan, Muley Hassan, was decidedly favourable to the Spaniards. Muley Hassan is now dead—murdered it is reported— and another party in the Sultanate has taken the reins of Government into its hands and proclaimed a boy of fourteen Sultan, to the total exclusion ot Muley Ismail, the brother of the late ruler. The present state of affairs in Morocco and the interference of Spain and France may have very much more important results than are at first sight apparent. In view of the barbarous form of Government that prevails in the Sultanate, which has necessitated the interference of foreign Powers on several occasions, it would no doubt be much better if the country were ruled by some European State. Spain, we know, has for many years cast longing looks at those fertile plains and those mountain ranges rich in minerals, both of which under a proper Government could be made to yield a princely revenue. France, too, although, financially speaking, her administration of the adjacent state of Algeria has not been a success, may be supposed, for several reasons, to cherish a, desire for the Sultanate,. With it and Algeria her influence in the North of Africa would be enormously extended. Already that influence extends across the great desert to the Niger Company's territory in the Gulf of Guinea and to her own colony of Senegal on the Atlantic. With Morocco in her possession—and she knows that sooner or later it must come into the hands of some of the European Powers — her dream of African Empire, which the British have so disturbed on the Congo lately, would be much nearer realisation than it now is. Besides this desire for a firmer footing on African ground for trading and colonising purposes, France would, no doubt, like to have some position in the Straits of Gibraltar in case of war. Of course, no position she could obiain could have an iota of the strategic value of our rock fortress on the other side, but there is no telling how useful it might prove to her. Tangiers, for instance, is much superior as a port to Ceuta, the Spanish harbour, and occupies a better position in many respects than Melilla, the other station belonging to Spain; Although Spain would very naturally never acquiesce in an arrangement by which France took sole possession of the Sultanate, it is quite probable that she would be prepared, in return for the help afforded her by her neighbour, to share the spoil. Some understanding of this kind may account for the alacrity with which France tendered her aid in the present crisis. France and Spain have been on very good terms lately. They both have grievances against Great Britain. The various grounds of the Republic we all know, and our old allies, the Spaniards, have always Gibraltar to fret them. The ill feelings which the latter entertain towards us were manifested during the Melilla trouble. The English journalists who went there to report the struggle between the Spanish garrisons and the Riffs were constantly regarded with suspicion, and some of them were told to leave African Spanish territory, while their French confreres were admitted into the fortresses and treated in the most polite fashion. The Spanish press—a powerful section of which is very hostile to England —filled the people's minds with the idea that we were not only burning to aid the Riffs, but that we were engaged in the transport of arms to them, and in sending spies to search out the secrets of the Spanish War Department; and the French press, as we see by the cables to-night, has p-omulgatid some equally stupid notion. Any interference we may offer or insist o» in the pre*

sent aspect of affairs in Morocco will not be received with very much favour by either Spain or France. They will both suspect us of an intention to spread our influence over another bit of Africa, as we did in Egypt, or to take possession of it altogether. There is promise of some interesting developments in Morocco.