FRANCO-ENGLISH RELATIONS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 January 1903, Page 4

FRANCO-ENGLISH RELATIONS.

The Morocco Question.

Telegraphing to the New York Journal on December 13tb,Max O’Rell says: “It is asserted in diplomatic circles that the relations between France and England have never been on a better footing than they are at present, and that all questions which might have given cause for difficulties were settled before the French Minister of the Navy reduced the fleet in the Mediterranean and stopped the construction of three new ironclads which had been orde red. The result of that Anglo-French understanding is that England would allow France to have a free hand in Morocco, and that in exchange Franca would renounce any claim to the Newfoundland and the New Hebrides disputes, and b.sides would accept the status in Egypt. The Morocco matter, which may become a burning question, will certainly be to the fore in a very short_ time. The present Sultan is far from being the proud Moor that his father wat. This son of a great warrior has two passions only—the phonograph and the bicycle. He bss been rambling all over his empire on bis wheel and has been to be as seven hours at a time on the saddle. ; A Spectacular Sovereign. Now, this is all very well, but in a country where everything has to be spectacular in order to f.ppeal to the minds of an imaginative population, where the Sultan is se'dom gazed at, and is generally seen clad in white, mounted on a sttperb Arab steed, holding in his hands a pair of golden reins and surrounded by a crowd of mounted slaves, protecting him from the rays of the burning sun with gorgeous white parasols, the sight of the Sultan on a bicycle is not calculated to keep alive in the Moorish breasts the respect of and fear for the Moorish throne.

His evenings are not spent in a much more dignified manner, for he passes them listening to the music hall ditties of Europe registered on the cylinders of his phonograph. A cinematograph has also been installed in the imperial palace, and Sultan Mulai Abdul el Aziz can feast his eyes on a screen giving him a representation of King Edward’s Coronation proceedings and other interesting events. Of course, the diplomatists who are vieing with each other in influencing this monarch are all utilising his’ passion for toys. Some give perfected kodaks, some present him with automobiles, others again have given those mechanical toys, invented by the fertile imaginations (of the Parisians, and all these presents aw carefully kept in a huge gallery of the palace for his constant amusement,

It is just possible that, while the Sul tan of Morocco is thus amusing himself, the French are preparing to add his dominions to their empire of North Africa.