The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1906. THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 80, 3 April 1906, Page 4

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

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1906. THE DEFEAT OF GERMANY.

Tor the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs reiittaiMMt For the future in Hie dietanoe. And the good tliat tee can do.

The Algeciras Conference has come to an end with rather dramatic sxiddenness; and we can safely surmise that if the Kaiser had known six months ago what was in store for him, he would have carefully refrained from interfering in the affairs of Morocco. The whole object, of Germany's intrusion into this sphere was to coerce France into a humiliating surrender to her demands, and if possible to break up the cordial understanding that now happily subsists between France and England. Germany, as we have frequently explained, had practically no interests, territorial or commercial, in Moroicco; and when ths Anglo-French Convention was first signed and announced to tho world, Chancellor yon Buelow formally declared that these questions were no concern of Germany's. But the Kaiser did not believe that England would go far in defence of :her new-found "friends, and he saw that if he could so arrange matters that France should be compelled to look to England for aid, and look in vain, he might induce France to forsake England' 3 friendship for his. But the Kaiser miscalculated not only the strength of the tie that now binds England to France, but the degree of sympathy that the rest of Europe felt for' France when it was once clearly understood that Germany was striving to force France to accept either shameful submission or a disastrous war. The Kaiser drove from office France's strongest Foreign Minister and compelled France to agree to the discussion of Moroccan affairs by an international conference; but there his success ended. The tone of the conference has been entirely favourable to France, and in'the end Germany has been compelled to give way on all the vital points that she raised or contested.

The scheme for the settlement of .Morocco arranged between France and England provided that France should supervise the finances and reorganise the internal defences of the country. This was a natural and proper concession to the undisputed predominance of French interests in Morocco. But Germany demanded that the police and 'the State Bank should be subject to international control, each Power being placed on a footing of equality. Round these two questions a long controversy raged, and on several occasions the obstinacy of Germany led to the collapse of the conference. But England stuck loyally to her obvious duty of backing France, %vhUe Russia, Spain, and to some extent even Italy, held to the same side. Germany's attitude was so impracticable, and the proposals .made by Count Tattenbach were so impossible that the general impression ' was that the Kaiser desired to escape from his difficulties by wrecking the looriference. However, Sir Arthur Nicholson, the British representative, 'insisted that the two crucial questions of finance and police organisation, which had been "temporarily laid aside, must be discussed again, and in the end as we have said, France has .got practically all that she required. The State Bank will be controlled by France, for by virtue of her position as Morocco's chief creditor she receives three shares in the capital, while the other Powers get only one each. As to the control of the police, it has-been arranged that Franco shall share this privilege with. Spain. But as France has already made a treaty with Spain adjusting their Tival interests on terms quite satisfactory to both parties, there is nothing in this arrangement to which ,H. Bevoilcould .seriously object.

The mem joint Is that no "conKM&ut of •■ .9XJ&- wrt .. has been

,' Germimyr - «fiA ~ th» sinister purpose with: which the Kaiser entered-upon Ms campaign against the ■Anglp-Frenclr -•'entente" has "beifiti completely frustrated. So far as Morocco is concerned matters stand almost precisely as "they stood before the Conference met. But-incidentally Europe has learned not only that France can depend absolutely upon the support and sympathy of England, but that: Germany, cannot hope for aid in any scieme of aggression even from the other members of the Triple Alliance. This 13 what the "Times" means by its assei> tion that the Conference should dispel the war-cloud that haa been lowering over Europe during the past year. For the Kaiser is the one force in EuTope to-day., that maJces for war, J and the Conference has proved that so far as any desire to injure Prance is concerned Germany is for'all effective purposes isolated and impotent.