FALLEN FRENCH PREMIER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14895, 22 January 1912, Page 4

FALLEN FRENCH PREMIER.

DIPLOMATIC WAYS OF HIS ' OWN. YIELDS TO BERLIN AND STRAINS ENTENTE. [FJROJI : OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] London, December 15. Although the Morocco:negotiations have concluded in favour of France, yet the Cabinet in Paris is seriously divided. M. Caillaux, the Prime Minister, is accused of over-readiness to comply with German demands, and M, de Selves, Minister for Foreign Affairs, is credited with labouring hard to ward off the vital danger which his colleague was sedulously evoking. The eagerness of 31. Caillaux to come to an estrangement with Germany, untempered with due solicitude about the price to be paid for it , hurried the Government, it is affirmed, into acts which were not merely injudicious but also dangerous to the vital interests of the nation.

When the German gunboat Panther was despatched to Agadir, various tactics came into consideration, and M. Caillaux adopted the very worst. ■ What he should havo done, say his critics, was to press tho German plea to its furthest consequences. According to Herr Von Kiderlen-Wachter, troubles in the Sus constituted the grounds for the despatch of the Panther. The French Government, displaying a lively solicitude for peace in Southern Morocco, should at once have sent a cruiser, whereupon Great Britain and Spain ought to have been exhorted to follow suit. But M. Caillaux, who was acting during the absence in Holland of the Foreign Secretary and President Fallieres, modified the decisions taken, and agreed to negotiate, so to say, under the cannons of the Panther. Spain was thrust aside, and Germany, heartened by this preliminary success, marched forward in triumph. M. Caillaux is further severely blamed for having originated the idea of bartering the Congo against such freedom of action in Morocco as Germany had it in her power to bestow. The basis of the negotiations is ascribed to him, and it is assumed that a much better bargain might have been struck- up had he held back with his proposal and left the arrangements in the hands of competent diplomatists. .'■■■"-

But, besides having his own personal proposals, he organised his own Diplomatic Corps. From the beginning of July he entered into direct personal relations with the Secretary of the German Embassy, whose chief was dealing publicly with M. de Selves, the Foreign Minister. In addition to this irregular procedure, the Premier, it is said, carried on occult pourparlers with Germany through the intermediary of dubiously accredited envoys of his own, with the result that contradictory instructions occasionally reached.Berlin from Paris and perplexed the French Ambassador there During the animated discussions which took place on the vexed question of : Consular or French jurisdiction in Morocco, the Prime Minister is accused of having inclined towards the German side at tho very moment when M. Jules Lambon was making a determined fight for the principle of French jurisdiction, and on one occasion the French Ambassador was astounded to hear Herr von Kidorlm-Wachter object to one of his remarks, "Well, that's not what thev promised us." ' * ©f Spain and certain of her claims in Morocco M. Caillaux endeavoured, it is complained, to make short work in a drastic way. For his method of imposing' his solution was devoid even of the - elementary forms of international amity About the entente cordiale he is accused of having expressed himself in terms which made a profound and painful impression in London as well as in Paris and Madrid.