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Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1925, Page 2

There is no reason to suppose, remarks an exchange, that France intend.-, any more in Morocco than she says viz., to read the Riffs a French lesson. Tbe protestations of M. I’ainlevc suggest that she suffered a good deal more severly in the recent attack than the world knows, and that she is going in have her revenge, but baldly tl.-ut she is about to engage in a war of conquest. It would be very difficult for her to conduct such a war. even if there were no international objections, since the territory of the Riffs is an immense mountainous ] lateau about half as long again as tbe South Island, and of about tbe same width, occupied by fanatics Hushed with vie-

tory and armed with better weapons than barbarians ever before possessed. Abdu’l-Karim. also, though most think of him as an illiterate savage, is in fact well educated, and only live years ago was an attache ol the Spanish CJ on ora I Sylvestre. According to one report Sylvestre lost bis temper and ■smacked Abdu’l-Karim’s fare a gross insult to a Mussulman ; but whatever caused tbe rupture between them the attache left tbe Spaniards and returned to bis tribe, a bitter enemy of all Christians. Just what his .strength is mimericallv no one seems to know, but all estimates give him 30.000 men. or more. He fights, too. now that he has crushed the Spaniards lieliind him. on a shorter lino than the French, and with complete security for such lines ol communication as he .requires, while the French have the Atlas tribesmen on their wing and dare not risk a severe reverse. The strength—though in certain circumstances it might be the weakness—of tbe French position is a strategic railway running from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and enclosing. the Riffs in a crescent of military posts manned, armed and y

ioned by rail. So long as they can hold this line they are secure, and iris i learly in the interests of our own Empire that they should not be unduly hampered in such reasonable punitive measures as thev may think desirable and find possible. Britain is not onxioun to make Morocco an international

question mi long as the Straits are secure.