WHAT IT IS ABOUT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10400, 22 August 1911, Page 4

WHAT IT IS ABOUT.

The probability of Moroccan affairs lighting the torch that will set the blaze of war in Europe, makes one pause, and ask, "What is it all about P" Tiiat is a question asked, generally, after the event, but seldom is a- satisfactory answer forthcoming, "the French force went to Fez nominally to relieve a small European colony which never was in real danger, actually to support a very cruel oultan, who lias hecome a tool of French policy," says- the Nation, discussing the relief of Fez. "There was much talk, there was even a proclamation, about mercy and the restoration of good government. An, amnesty was solemnly promised and widely proclaimed by Mulai Hand; but on the very evening of the arrival of the 'relief force' he sent out a portion of Iris native army, under the command of officers of the French 'Mission, to ravatge a wealthy district near Fez, named Lemta, who.ve inhabitants', so far as one can learn, had provoked him only by their prosperity. Lemta was blotted out, unresistingly, its villages hurned, its cattle lifted, arid its men slaughtered. Worst,of all, eighty women and children were brought back to Fez and openly sold in the market-place into slavery. Thus it is to inarch out out to 'protect women and children.' "