THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1911. THE MOROCCAN TROUBLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 1035, 16 August 1911, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1911. THE MOROCCAN TROUBLE.

The English .mail, .which reached Masterton onj Monday night, brought London files of July 3rd, which contain some important references to the action of Germany in landing troops at Agadir, in Morocco. The "•Morning Post" .sums up the position) very .dearly when .it says:— If the maintenance of >order iiix Morocco is not to 'be left to France or to .France' and Spain a® was arranged at Algeciras, and if another Power land (troops, what is to become of Britishi .commercial interests in the country? After all it is the British Government that is, primarily responsible for them, as. it cannot lie supposed -that the Agreement with France involved their destruction or tacit abandonment. The German Government has iby its. action torn up (the Act of Algeciraa. Tiiis lias "been , done arbitrarily without consultation or discussion with the other Powers,' either with France or with Great Britain. That Spain has been consulted it is impossible either to deny or to affirm. Spanish observers have shown some irritation at the action of France- in assisting the Sultan and extricating him from liis difficulties- at Fez, and ithe Spanish Government has recently landed troops in a region of Morocco where there was no disorder, a proceeding which was not iby other tharu Spanish observers fully understood. Now, at the moment when Germany announces her occupation of Agadir, the official announcement is made at Madrid that German troops ha.ve landed at Arzilla, a port only fifty miles south of Tangier. The statement is hardly credible. If the German Government while announcing in. Paris and .London its action at Agadir is alt the same time taking other action din Morocco not announced ,to the Governments' of France and Great Britain the formal courtesy of the announcement is thereby annulled. It is significant, however, that the

new.s of rt'lie German action ap■pears to bs received with approval at • Madrid. Tlie next move is with Franco. If Germany's action is unacceptable to France, Great Britain is bound to support the action of Franc©. Tliis is tlie gist of tho policy inaugurated by tho Marquis of Lansdow.no when he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Government of Mr Balfour, and consistently pursued by Sir jidward Grey from tlie moment when he succeeded to that office. The event ■which has now taken place was, it must be assumed, fully considered by Mr Balfour's Government, and j must have been fully considered by •His Majesty's present advisers. It is not, however, yet .apparent that a definite solution of the problem, which long ago required a hypothetical solution, was reached, or that the French and British Governments agreed with a view to the possibility of that event tipon a specific course. That may, however, have I been the case, and if so the result i will be i&cen before many days are j past. Germany's action tears up more than the Act of Algeciras. It amounts to a iblnnt declaration that the Franco-British Agreement and the policy of co-operation between Great Britain and France or between France and Great Britain is unsnb- ! stantial and may be ignored. This i 9 not the moment for a discussion of the Agreement or of the policy which is implied. The criticisms to which we thought tlie 1 Agreement and the policy were ope®, were made •at the time of the Agreement and in the course of the development of the policy. We should ha.ve preferred a and explicit alliance. Germany's interpretation is now made plain; the question only is how the .two Governments* will regard it. They may accept and confirm the German view. The all-im-portant point for the people of tihis country now to realise is what the German action implies in the mind of the German Government. That Government would not take a step as to which .it could have no doubt whatever of its effect on the feelings both of the French and British nations without considering the possibilities to wliich those feelings 1 might lead- No doubt the German Government has made a shrewd guess that nothing would be done, and that its action would meet with a more or less graceful acquiescence. But it could not but be aware of the possibility of a different reception. It could not fail to calculate' with that possibility. The Ger- . man Emperor would never let the orders go to the Panther without having asked his military and his naval advisers, Are we ready ? and without having received the answer, Yes, quite ready. We are unwilling to credit the German Government with talcing specific action on the chance that there would be no consequences, 'and as a mere piece of bluff. The only alternative hypothesis is that the German. Government is now satisfied that itsi Navy is ready for any emergency, and in particular for the eventuality contemplated in the preamble to the Aca regarding the construction of ships.