FRANCE AND MOROCCO.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 November 1907, Page 12

FRANCE AND MOROCCO.

Paris, October 15. Whilst the public are being daily regaled with seriously worded telegrams describing tho interviews of M. Regnault, the Frenbh Minister, and the Stilton Abd-el-Aziz,. it is gradually leaking out that all the negotiations, so-called, hinge merely' oh tho uesporate attempts of thp Sultan to obtain even the smallest sum of ready money. One of tho best-informed and most plain-spoken fcorrespondents on the spot states that all that remained of_ £10,000 lately advanced was recently divided into a few little heaps, each boing the sum necessary for one day's needs, and only three or four remain. And these heaps represent tho pay, not of the army or administration, but simply of tho personal bodyguard and household of tho Sultan. . M.. Rcghault is supposed to bo defending himself against the Imperial importunity by taking refugo behind tho Act of Algeciras,; which: says that only tho State Bank shall advanco monoy to the Mnkhzon, and:also backing up his attitude by asserting that until order is re-established it is impossible to considor that any.guarantco oxists for repayment. Nobody really knows what M. Regnault has said, but if the goncrally accredited version is correct, it shows that France has not yet decided to back Abd-el-Aziz, and is still hesitating for foar of putting hor monoy on the "wrong horse." Tho few millions of francs nooded by Abd-el-Aziz cannot bo looked at as a financial operation of tho sort contemplated in tho Act of Algeciras, and Franco has already snont„miich more in her military operations. Tho excuse based on the establishment of order is also palpably specious, bocause without monoy it is impossible to keep order, and it is arguing in a vicious circle, if not absolutely backwards, to mako the ordor an antecedent to tbo cash. " "