The Progress of the World. 



437 



the grim tragedy involved in tiie Italian decision to 

 " cow the Arabs. " If this precedent be allowed to 

 pass without stern protest, the measure which we 

 allow to be meted out to the .Arabs will ere long be 

 meted out to us and to ours, and it will serve us right. _ 

 The long-protracted negotiations 

 The Moroccan between France and Germany over 

 Nighimare. Morocco seem to be at last ap- 

 proaching to their final conclusion. 

 The agreement between the two Powers is on the 

 point of being signed. The whole forms a chapter 

 in international diplomacy which reflects-Jio credit on 

 any of the parties concerned. It is perhaps well to 

 recall the simple fads of the situation. The Moroc- 

 can question hatl been settled for a period of years 

 by the Algeciras Convention. France, however co- 

 gent or otherwise the grounds of her action, by 

 occupying Fez, was held by Germany to have 

 e.xceeded her powers under that Convention. Spain 

 promptly followed suit by a similar encroachment. 

 The obvious course of at once submitting these 

 acts, with such grounds of justification as could be 

 offered, to the Towers that combined in the Algeciras 

 Convention, was not taken. Still worse, the other 

 Powers did not insist on such submission to their 

 collective judgment, and Sir F^dward Grey even 

 endorsed the action of France. So each Power went 

 its own way, to take or to claim, to support or to 

 oppose claims and takings. Germany followed suit 

 and sent the J',vit/ia- to Agadir. ]",ven then the 

 other Powers might have required a public settlement 

 of the opposing claims. The L'nited States at lean 

 might liavc urged this plain solution. But, no, France 

 and Germany were supposed to settle the matter 

 entirely between themselves. At the same time 

 Great Britain gave clear indication of her intention 

 'o support France. 



The immediate outcome seems to 

 be that F'rance has conceded to 

 her what is practically a free 

 hand in Morocco, and Germanv 

 receives as comjiensation a slice of the French Congo 

 territory, thus adding to her Cameroon colonial area. 

 But at what a cost has this long diplomatic discussion 

 proceeded ! The Great Powers have suflfered sadly 

 in dignity and in international respect. Instead of 

 uniting as a European agora for the worthy settle- 

 ment of disputes, they have sunk perilously near the 

 level of individual bandits <iuatrelling or comjjacting 

 wivh each other over private booty. Germany feels 

 that she has lost j ainfully in prestige and has suftere<l 

 in her finances to an extent that will not be made good 



How It was Banished. 



Its Price. 



by any compensation. Great Britain has not merely 

 roused the anti-British sections of the German public to 

 fury, but, what is far more deplorable, the malignant 

 attacks of these papers seem to have led astray some 

 of our best friends in Germany. Germans who have 

 given the best part of their lives to promoting friend- 

 ship between Fatherland and Mother-country, lament 

 that England has made all their efforts futile. This 

 is serious, because it implies that German friendship 

 has to be paid for by giving away other people's 

 territory whenever Germany chooses to ask for it. 



One of the first-fruits of the 

 Morocco "agreement" will pro- 

 bably be an increase in naval 

 arm-aments all round. A return 

 issued during the month has shown us that during 

 the last ten years the expenditure on naval arma" 

 nients among the eight Great Powers has increased 

 from 90 millions to 134 millions. But still the 

 mad race goes on, and will go on until statesmen 

 learn that deviation from public treaties cannot be 

 made a matter of private settlement, as France has 

 tried to make it in Morocco and Italy in Tripoli. 

 In this general rush for bigger fleets, believers in the 

 English-speaking man may find some ray of hope in 

 the fact that the .\merican Atlantic fleet now being 

 reviewed in the Hudson River is declared to be only 

 second to the Coronation assembly of the British 

 Fleet. The fleet is said to number a hundred and two 

 warships of all classes, and a tonnage of considerably 

 over half a million, with some of the very biggest 

 battleships in the world. The launch on the Clyde 

 of the first armoured shi[) of the Royal Australian 

 iVavy has almost synchronised with Mr. Andrew 

 Fisher's declaration of his hope that " as part of the 

 family of nations, and co-operating with perhaps the 

 United States, we may at no distant date be able to 

 say to those who would break the peace of the world. 

 You shall not do it with impunity." But perhaps 

 the time has scarcely yet come for Empire and 

 Republic to place their combined navies at the 

 disposal of the Hague Tribunal for the enforcement 

 of its decisions. 



" 'That a Liberal Ministry in 



Ministerial England should hold its fist under 



Changes. our nose and declare, ' I alone 



am arbiter over the world,' " — to 



tjuote the vigorous phrase of Herr von Heiderbrandt 



— involves consequences which are supposed to be 



reflected in the recent Ministerial changes. The 



frequency with which members of the present 



.Administration have changed their offices suggests 



