A DISPUTE SETTLED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3197, 25 May 1909, Page 5

A DISPUTE SETTLED.

CASABLANCA INCIDENT. "A VERY UJNrLEASANT INCIDENT CLOSED." Received May 24, 8.2 a.m. BERLIN, May 23. The International Arbitration Court at The Hague upheld the main points of the French .position in regard to the [dispute with the German at Casablanca, in Morocco, in September last. The Court strongly blamed the Secretary of the Consulate for endeavouring to secure the embarkation of deserters of German nationality. Nevertheless the French were blamed for not respecting as far as possible Germany's da facto protect.on of those deserters, and for threats of using revolvers; also for their illtreatment of a Moroccan attached to the Consulate. The "North German Gazette" commenting on the judgment says it now remains for both Governments to express regret. The "Gazette" adds that a very unpleasant incident is closed by the award in a dignified manner, entirely satisfactory from the standpoint of international relations.

The incident which caused friction between the two nations occurred at Casablanca in September last, during the French military operations in the country. According to the reports cabled at the time, 200 soldiers of the Foreign Legion (a force in French employ, but consisting of "all sorts and conditions of men") deserted, and French gendarmes, it is aaid, saw five men, whom they recognised as deserters, brought to the seashore by the secretary to the German Consulate and Moorish horsemen in the employ of the Consul. When the men were about to enter a boat to embark on a Hamburg steamer, the gendarmes arrested them. A horseman interfered, and he, too, was arrested, but later the gendarmes liberated him. German accounts stated that the French harbour captain pointed a revolver at the secretary . and fiercely assaulted the horseman. The French Press asserted that several of the deserters were not Germans, and that the captured men have not only accused the Germans of "egging'' them on to desert, but declared that an agency for desertion and the fomenting of mischief had been in existence for some time in Casablancai Subsequently the secretary joined in the. attack on the Fi-ench party.