FRANCE IN NORTH AFRICA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 15, 2 September 1911, Page 2

FRANCE IN NORTH AFRICA.

Sir Harry Johnston, in the “Nineteenth Century and After,” ' gives an informative sketch of the French colonial expansion in North Africa. The Algerian corsairs had to he put down, j and by 1834 the French Government i had deliberately assumed the respon- j •ability for conquering and administer- i ijijr Algeria from the Mediterranean to the Saraha. In 1881 Morocco received a short, sharp lesson, and never again seriously attempted any interference in Algeria. Thenceforth and until 1904 only the opposition of Great Britain and of Spain stood between France and a conquest of Morocco. Sir Harry Johnston shows that France now finds herself awkwardly situated in Morocco. “The cruel, misgoverning Sultan deserves little commiseration, nor need we waste much pity on his unruly and unwilling subjects, who are madly fanatical against the Christian European, pitilessly cruel tribe against tribe, warped and spoilt by twelve centuries of civil war. To preserve her position in North Africa France is obliged to interfere in Morocco, and Germany obliges France to play the role in Morocco of the Sultan’s ally and supporter. Far and away the best thing for Morocco and the people of Morocco at the present day would be the distinct and clear establishment of a French protectorate and the reduction of the Sultan to the same position as that now honourably occupied by the Bey of Tunis. Then, indeed, the country would go ahead.” Sir Harry Johnston adverts to the danger of Mohammedan fanaticism in North Africa, and quotes a case in which a German official in the Levant wont to “indiscreet lengths” in suggesting that the real friend of Islam was Germany,, and chat under German protection Islam might regain the empire of its palmy days. He questions the wisdom of the pro-Islamic attitude of Germany, and

says that “any such weapon as she might 'forgo' for the injury of Britain or France in Africa might be turned a.gainst herself to-day in Africa or later in Western Asia.” He adds that Fiance in. North Africa is in the main carrying out the purpose aiid subserving tiie interests of civilised Europe, just as Germany or AustroGenuauy is doing, and may be doing the same in other regions at present undeveloped and barely civilised.