THE ARAB RISING IN ALGERIA.

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 July 1901, Page 3

THE ARAB RISING IN ALGERIA.

Considerable sensation has been created in Paris by the news of the outbreak in Algeria, which resulted in the sacking of the village of Marguerite, situated less than eighty miles from the town of Algiers. It is believed that the danger is over, but the military are taking active measures. Sixty Arabs had been taken prisoners, but the chiefs are still at large. The rising is attributed to the incitement of a fanatical Marabout who had been preaching a holy war, and the recovery of land taken by the foreigner. His appeal , found hearers among the poverty-stricken natives. It appears that on Thursday evening April 25, the night before the revolt, a Moorish servant of a French officer living in the capital informed her master that the Beni Monasser would revolt on the following day. They wanted to take back their fields and forests. They had been bought out but could not live without their lands. It broke their hearts to fee Frenchmen taking over their farms and Spanish woodmen coming to cut down for firewood their finest trees. The officer lock no notice of this warning, which expla ns the cans.' of ihe revolt. From year to year French 1 in 11 irds have oncroft lied on Arab lands, som - imes by Compulsory purchase, at other times by legal sharp practice. The Beni Menassar, who number about 40,000 held secret meetings last year and agreed to seize the lands taken away from them. The native Kaid, however, reported them. Every native hut was searched, arms and powder were confiscated, and twelve of the loading malcontents were transported.

The ‘‘Temps” remarks that the only wonder is that an insurrection did not break out long ago. In Algeria French settlers have a vote, natives have none. The latter may send delegates to a parish council, but only to give their opinion, so that in a district like that of Hammam Rhira a few hundred Frenchmen govern 40,000 natives. . It is a case of race ascendency untempnred by anything. The result of this race ascendency is that the taxes fall almost entirely on the natives, who get nothing in return. Then the

common lands of the natives are regarded as the common land of the parish, and are let out to Frenchmen. Natives then have no choice but starva'un or revolt. The “Temps’’ believes that the natives have still plenty of land left to live upon, provided they are taught die European methods of farming, and are protected from Paris against the rapricious settler. The “Figaro’’ published an interview it had with anAtab magistrate who is represented to have expressed the optuion that the Marguerite revolt was the work of officials, and was not a sudden movement, but a voluntary and premeditated one, These officials, ‘ho added, knew that M. Jonnart, the Governor-General, had come with an administrative programme which favored the natives, and they sought to discourage him at the outset by organising a revolt. Ho did not think that the revolt would assume larger proportions, but that is was now at an end, the desired object having been attained.