WHEN THE PANTHER SPRANG

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 112, 8 November 1930, Page 25

WHEN THE PANTHER SPRANG

tbb aauouncemeut mai. me pore 01 Agadir, in Morocco, has been opened for traffic recalls an international incident that took placu about nineteen years ago. Few people had ever heard of the place when, on Ist July, 1911, the German Ambassador at Paris told the French Government that a German warship, the Panther, had been sent there. The action was a diplomatic bombshell. The reason given for it was that Gernian" business houses established in: Southern Morocco were alarmed by the^growing agitajtiou of the nativo tribes; and needed 'protection. Everybody, however, took the action of; Germany as 'a-challenge to the. spread of French influence in Morocco'; Four months'of exciting negotiations were necessary before the incident was settled,-and the tiny village

with the'big harbour slipped back into oblivion. - •. . ; ( .. Agadir has the finest, natural harbour on the coast" of Morocco. The region surrounding it has always been ■a centre of mischief, and a Sultan of I Morocco in >1784 punished the inhabi-1 tants by closing the port altogether | and; "creating the. port ■of Mogador, fur-1 their north. . ' ',' Since the war no European-or other foreigner has been allowed to settle in the district or even/ to visit it. The sole apparent exception has been tho remarkable.one of a: native who went to the United States asa performer of juggling tricks, 'becamo an American citizen,-and wont back; to visit his old mother. :,_,; -v _;• ' ■ In preparation for", the needs of a business community, all the plans have been laid, for. a ' European* city, and work on some: buildings- has begun.