THE EUROPEAN CLOUD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 75, 19 September 1911, Page 5

THE EUROPEAN CLOUD

NEWSPAPERS OPTIMISTIC. SETTLEMENT IN SIGHT. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received 18, 11.10 p.m. Paris, September 18. Newspapers are optimistic regarding the Moroccan settlement, and anticipate that an agreement will be signed at the end of the month. At a large meeting at the frontier town of Bussang, half the audience being Alsatian French, German deputies addressed the gathering, protesting •gainst the idea of war, and supporting the Jena Socialist manifesto. UNESSENTIAL DIFFERENCES. CLEAR GUARANTEES REQUIRED. Received 18, 11.10 p.m. Berlin, September 18. The Kolnische Zeitung declares that the only differences now remaining in regard to commercial conditions, 'are unessential in character. The Lokalanzeiger says that merely formal differences remain to be settled, but the guarantees, in view of the Madagascar and Tunis precedents, must not lack clearness. SPAIN'S CONCESSIONS. Paris, September 17. It is asserted that the French reply to Germany enquires respecting the seccret Hispano-German treaty and asks for certain guarantees regarding this. It is reported in some circles that Spain has ceded to Germany a port in the Canary Islands, if not the whole of one of the islands. i A REPORT DENIED. Received 19, 12.50 a.m. Madrid, September 18. Senor Canalejas, Premier, denies that there was ever any question of ceding to Germany either a port or an island in the Canaries. -BELGIUM CABINET HALT. Brussels, September 17. The Belgian Cabinet, on receiving an optimistic telegram from Berlin, postponed the summoning of three classes of reservists.

WORKERS' VIEWS.

Paris, September 17.

Delegates from the Amalgamated Unions of the Seine district are considering the suggestion that international capitalists desired to create a diversion from the demand of the workers by utilising the Moroccan incident. They decided on a general revolutionary strike in the event of war. I Countess de Brazza, wido,w of the i Congo explorer, protested to the President against sacrificing the Congo I movement, which was growing, by the ' cession of the best parts of the French Congo to Germany. SHORT-SIGHTED STATESMANSHIP. OXE VIEW OF THE CRISIS. The existence of Morocco in its present state (writes "Vanoe" in a lively article in the London Referee) is a sign that our civilisation is really enamel, not a fine substitute for the elemental. The jealousy of Chrisendom. has left Morocco for eighteen hundred years in the same state as it was when Jagurtha was surrendered to the Romans. Within four days of Portsmouth is a fertile territory under a climate fit to grow corn for ail Western Europe, Morocco, the abode of savages picturesque and interesting savages as compared with the magnates of Mark Lane, Paris or Madrid—but still savages. A few years ago France and England, conscious of peril in the direction of Central Europe, agreed to pool their differences. England was to clear out of Morocco; France was to cease from troubling in Egypt and to abrogate the obnoxious clause in the Treaty of Utrecht which created a running "sore owing to the friction over fishing rights in Newfoundland. As in the case of England's. treatySxfiflff zfiftffffi flffflifli England's Treaty of Alliance with Japan, the policy of 'our Foreign Office was short-sighted cunning rather than sagacious statesmanship. On the surface the bargain was a good one. The English quarrel with France was composed, and if the free hand which France had obtained in Morocco led to trouble the mandarins of the Foreign Office assumed that Moroccan trouble would be merely the affair of France. But they reckoned without the hosts of Central Europe. The mandarins were not blind; thev were short-sighted 1 . For year past it has been plain that Germany would claim a share, if not the monopoly, of any place in the sun that went vacant. The disposal of Morocco by England and France and the agreement with Spain did not annul or dispose of the intention of Germany to take a hand in the game. What right had we to dispose of Morocco to suit our book which is more valid than the right of Germany to dispose of Morocco to suit her book? The right of sea. power, and non other. The country belongs to no European Power, though three of them watch the rich and luscious prize with the slobbering mouths of famished carnivores gazing on a herd of antelope. Treaties do not count with the carnivorous. The power of Germany to make herself felt existed when England marketed rights in Morocco which did not belong to her. The French Republic, singlehanded, dare not occupy or annex territory coveted by Germany. Whether the "conversation" that ought to have taken place five year ago can now be held with success is uncertain. What is certain is that the German move has been taken only after exhaustive analysis of everv possible variation of a gambit, the first move of which is the occupation of the harbor at Agadyr. To tear up an Inter national treaty is nothing in these days: the only wonder is-that so many British dupes are still found to rely on the sloshy language of sentiment as an adequate substitute for grim fact. The Panther was sent to Agadvr not to annoy England and France' but because Germany wants a bit of Morocco or its equivalent elsewhere.