EATE OE MOltOCCO:

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1907, Page 12

EATE OE MOltOCCO:

SPAIN'S AMBITIONS. BLOCKED BY GERMANY. THE SITUATION TO-DAY. What has Spain been doing in Morocco'/ Has she been playing into the hands of Germany ? Is she now acting whole-heartedly with France? What is she going to do in the long, troublous, perplexed, and complicated future? Experts in the game of diplomacy have been puzzling over such questions lor many years (writes a Paris correspondent). Even common p'eoplo and telegraph correspondents have been struck with won dor at the do-nothing and let-alone attitude of Spanish soldiers in Casablanca whilo French battalions were under fire. ' The quite true explanation that the Spanish commander had no orders only sot curiosity further back — across tho water to Spain and its government, which gives the orders. Emilo Bourgeois, who is professor of modern diplomatic history at the Sorbonne, bas twenty-eight pages in the last Grand Revue on this "Spanish problem in the Moroccan question." Ho has so much apparent information on a diplomatic secret closely guarded from tho public — and froni\ most governments — that the first impression is : "If M. Bourgeois's article is not iuspircd, it has at least been documented from authentic sources. It corresponds with a significant change of front ,ii Senor Gonzalo de Reparaz, whoso publications have for very many years best represented Spanish patriotic feeling. It was after a visit to Morocco mado in tho spring of 1892 that Senor Reparaz first opened to me at length the ambition and the jealousy of the* Spanish people in all that concerned the, future of Morocco. It was not long after Lord Salisbury, the most far-sighted statesman of his generation in foreign affairs (in striking "contrast with Gladstone), had pronounced Morocco a permanent stormcentre for Europe. "Morocco begins at the Pyrenees," Senor ReparazW-ecalled -from a centuryold saying. But he obviously meant that Spain ought to end somewhere beyond Fez and taper off in the Sahara. Ho referred me to some curious public cations of Canovas del Castillo, written at the time of Spain's military expeditions into Morocco long before thab statesman rose to political prominence. WHY SPAIN HESITATES. Since then Spain has lost the colonies which so hampered her natural [development at homo. " Struggle and "defeat have left her people with the one desire for peaco and steady government. No adventures abroad ! No revolutions at home ! are the only absolutely popular and unanimous watchwords. " All this goes far to explain the hesitating policy of the Spanish Government in the present crisis. They are afraid to be drawn with France into costly expeditions and international complications. But this by no moans explains all. Ex-Ministor Hanotaux, who managed the foreign affairs of France for years before M. Delcassc invented tho "peaceful penetration" of Morocco, which has ended in tho present war, wrote in obvious reference to the Bourgeois article : "Spain's altitude remains ambigious. In our relations with that Power concerning Morocco, there is a double and a triple obscurity : obscurity in her engagements, obscurity in her actions, obscurity in her intentions. Yet some day or other wo shall have to see clear in thorn. While confessing that I do not much like certain explanations, I must acknowledgo that they arc at least better than certain complications." Now for twenty years Senor Rcparaz, like Canovas thirty years before, and like all Spaniards cver'since there wero Moors in Spain, lias been declaring that the Moroccan question is tkeir own homo question, vital to their natural expansion by the laws of history and geography combined. And for nineteen years Senor Reparaz maintained that Franco was tho one, the real adversary of Spain in Morocco. During all that time he pleaded for diplomatic action •with' England, who alone could save tho situation for Spain. Ho accepted _ with the end of his lips' tho triangular Anglo-Franco-Spanish understandings and tho Algcciras resolutions, which so persistently remain inoperative. Suddenly, ho comes out enthusiastically for tho policy of concerted action with France. TREATY AGREEMENTS. This policy is based on three professed agreements, the second being tho diplomatic secret, in which Professor Bourgeois suspects France heedlessly gave up her vital interests, while Germany has been profiting by tho blunder ever since. (1.) Tho two governments are united as against all others — even Germany— in upholding "tho special quality of their rights, -he importance of their interests, without ever allowing any third Power to take at any point of Morocco a place liko that which France and" Spain alono hold fiom the geographical and political situation and. from their past services." It was Loon Bourgeois, who was brought forward to savo what ho could of the Delcasso policy, that gave this expression to the claims of Franco and Spain. (8.) Oil the 3rd of October, 1904, France and Spain signed an agreement, tho details of which have never been communicated either to the Parliaments of the two countries or to other governments. The general declaration which communicated the agreement to Iho Powers announced vaguely that it fixed tho extent of the rights and guaranteed the interests accruing to Franco from Algiers and to Spain from her possessions of the Afiican coast; and it further promised on the part of both nations tho integrity of Morocco's territory and freedom of tradq with all count rig?In thu second aiticie of her agreement with England, France had already explained fully just what she understood were her rights and interests in Morocco. Spain has nowhero yet explained what she wants or claims or expects ex'ccpt in the secret provisions of her agreement with France. It was this secret which beyond doubt started up Germany to unite with- the Sultan and block the way to France. And Gcrmany'q peculiar policy at the present moment is probably dictated by its knowledge of tho secret, which enables her to nullify any and every action of Franco in Morocco. SPANISH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE What is this secret? The best French authority on those Moroccan difficulties, M. Tar'dieu ("G'oorgo Villiers" of tho Paris Temps), refuses to speak of it in the big book which ho has written. He says : "Even now there might be inconveniences in giving tho exact detail of the dispositions which were mado." Professor Bourgeois, without tho same scruple, from all tho known dociimenls and subsequent action of tho various Powers, with the half-confessions forced from Spanish and French diplomacy alike, pieros out tho following coiu'lumqii : To bring about, tho agreement of October, 1904, b'rnnte was obliged to associate Spain in her own work in Moroi co and ntomise her a .slmc in all the enterprises of police, public workn, and fiiiam-0 for the improvement of Morocco. And llm fharo which Spain ox u'tcrl and obtained was '"geographical" — definitely regarding certain parts and regions of Morocco nearest to Spain and to her African possessions. That is to say, by some gtrange diplom-

I atic lapse, France, in her eagerness to sccuro Spain's co-oporation, equivalently agreed that- thero should be constituted "a Spanish sphere of influence." It is openly suspected that the German Ambassador Radowkz wormed the substance of this secret agreement out of the Sub-Secretary of State, Ojeda, at Madrid, shortly after it was signed. It was Germany's opportunity, and France's permanent bepuzzlemont. If there arc to bo spheres of influence, Germany must have hers also. If Spam is not to have her sphere of influence, then Spain owes France nothing except to see to it that all France's action in Morocco be purely defensive or punitive — without any political advantage. Tho friends of France in Spain, to relax the tautness of so intolerable a situation, brought about the signing of a quite now and this time open, agreement between France and Spain on tho 16th of May of tho present year. It practically declares ths African status quo inviolable from the Straits of Gibraltar to Senegal. This heads off Germany anew, as President Roosevelt did (perhaps unwittingly) at Algeciras, But it ties the hands of France for the present and leaves the whole question cf Spain in Morocco without prejudice for the future.