growing trade and industrial interests in Morocco; created consular offices, banks, post-offices, and sank important sums in mineral enterprise in Morocco and in steamship services with Morocco.

My case is, further, that the German Emperor's visit to Tangier in March 1905 was the direct outcome of knowledge of the secret Convention leaking out, aggravated by M. Delcassé's discourteous action in failing officially to notify to the German Government the precedent Anglo-French agreement. My case is, that the violent campaign urged in the British Press at that time against Germany, which did so much to embitter AngloGerman relations and to aggravate the naval problem, was not justified, and would not have received public support had the nation been aware of the character of the secret Convention and its pendant, the secret articles of the Anglo-French agreement. It is, that having, as the upshot of the German Emperor's visit, participated in a second international conference on Moroccan affairs (Algeciras) in 1906, and having put its signature at the bottom of a treaty proclaiming the independence and integrity of Morocco, and postulating that the stipulations of the Act should prevail over any provisions contrary to their tenor which might be contained in precedent arrangements negotiated, the British Government's pledge of diplomatic support' to France under the April 1904 agreement was thereby modified. It is that thenceforth the path lay open for British diplomacy to exercise a salutary influence as between France and Germany, and to lean rather towards those elements in France which desired to come to terms with Germany as to the future, than towards the elements which wished to rush matters by treading on Germany's toes. My case is, that British diplomacy took the latter course, and encouraged France in the belief that every fresh step taken by the military and colonial parties in the process of absorbing Morocco without coming to an understanding with Germany had our approval. My case is, that we pursued that policy to the very end, and when Spain imitated the French, fearing to lose her share of the spoil under the secret Convention, and flung 50,000 troops into Morocco, we displayed equal tolerance; but that the moment Germany sent her little cockle-shell of a gunboat with its complement of 125 men to anchor off a Moroccan port, we accused her of violating the Algeciras Act and of acting like an international highwayman; that newspapers, credibly supposed to be inspired by the Foreign Office, compared Germany to Dick Turpin, and accused the German Government of wilfully disturbing international peace. My case is, that the attitude of British diplomacy at that time was marked by an ill-will and unjustifiable suspicion towards Germany which culminated in an openly provocative speech delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but dictated by the Foreign Secre

tary-the more provocative by the manner of its interpretation in The Times the next morning, which gave a lead to all the antiGerman Press in France and England. My case is, that from first to last the withholding from the British and French public of all knowledge of the secret partition Convention of 1904 has (a) in the case of Great Britain prejudiced, to the detriment of friendly relations between England and Germany, and, consequently, as I contend, of the British national interest, the British public view of German action; (b) in the case of France enabled the military and colonial parties to push successive French Cabinets into a policy of precipitate absorption of Morocco at the risk of a rupture with Germany, and misled the French public into supporting that policy in the belief that France was acquiring the whole of Morocco, whereas France was already cut off by the secret partition Convention from the whole of the Mediterranean littoral of Morocco and from a considerable portion of the North Atlantic littoral. My conclusion is, that while it may be too soon to judge whether the acquisition by France of Morocco, under such circumstances, sufficiently compensates her for the risks she has already run, and for the expenses she has already incurred, and will continue for many years to incur, both in Morocco and at home; it is not too soon to realise that the results for us are uniformly bad," and might have been disastrous but for the reaction which set in this winter, gathered force in the spring, and led to the Anglo-German 'conversations' now proceeding.

Such is the case I presented, and it is hardly necessary to remark that M. Millet makes no attempt to meet it. He first caricatures, then eludes it. Of the international history of Morocco prior to 1904, not a word. Of Germany's treaty and other rights and interests in Morocco which gave her the clearest possible justification—and, indeed, duty, as we should not be slow to recognise had the positions been reversed-to be consulted, not a word. Of the secret treaties, not a word. And so on. So far as I am able to analyse his contribution, it consists-personal abuse of myself aside of an attempt to prove that Germany's main reason in sending the Panther to Agadir was the outcome of her disappointment at the failure of certain Franco-German financial combinations connected with the construction of public works in Morocco arising out of the Franco-German arrangement of February 1909. To this he adds the allegation that the German Government played a double-shuffle over the question of the 'open door,' which was manfully resisted by France, mainly in the interest of Great Britain. In this connexion M. Millet makes two admissions which may be noted. First that, as regards the

Except in so far as German intervention has secured the permanent * open door' for trade in Morocco.

See further on.

combinations aforesaid, 'the French Government was responsible for a number of those failures,' and that it is not surprising that the Germans should have thought that they were being cheated.' In parenthesis one notes that Mr. E. D. Morel's French friends' (so he has some after all it would seem!) were instrumental in bringing one such failure about.' Secondly, that France had no mandate under the Algeciras Act to establish order inside Morocco.' In other words, she had no mandate under that Act to establish a Protectorate over Morocco. Precisely, and the fact that she sought to effect one, without a mandate, and was backed by the British Foreign Office in so doing, has been the source of all the recent trouble. Passing to the incidents of last July, M. Millet confines himself in the main to repeating statements which have already been repudiated by his Government, and to reproducing extracts from Pan-German papers revealing the ambitions of their writers; he omits, of course, to state that it was just because the German Government did not endorse those ambitions that it drew down upon itself the wrath of the German Chauvinists. The remaining three pages of the paper consist of statements purporting to represent the German Government's bad faith in the ensuing September and October. M. Millet concludes with a finely involved phrase in which he praises the conduct of the Foreign Office, contrasting it with the 'peace-crank, open-air preachers who are trying to ruin England for the benefit of humanity.'

I am not, therefore, called upon to refute any onslaught upon the case I have presented in this Review, but to deal with such arguments and statements in M. Millet's paper as appear in themselves worthy of examination. I will begin in the reverse order. M. Millet says that when the German Foreign Secretary was asked in September last to assent to a written definition of the régime which was to be set up in Morocco,' he 'with characteristic rapidity' invented a series of proposals tending to restrict the French powers under a Protectorate, and to secure special economic advantages for Germany in every enterprise.' M. Millet produces no documentary evidence in support of these statements. They are put forward on the strength of his mere ipse dixitor on that of his colleague M. André Tardieu. Such being the case I must decline to discuss them. I can only compete in the field of accessible public documents. I know of none produced hitherto which enable these statements to be checked or controlled. The same applies to what M. Millet describes as the German Foreign Secretary's attitude in October as regards

7 My French friends protested against it, because those who, on the French side, promoted it, stipulated a heavy indemnity to be paid to a concessionnaire company in the French Congo; a proposal which they, rightly in my opinion, regarded as little short of a public scandal.

the French right of pre-emption over the Belgian Congo-a right originally secured, it may be remarked in passing, behind the back of the other Powers which co-operated in recognising King Leopold's sovereignty over the Congo. M. Millet gives no public document harmonising with his statement. his word for it. It is not sufficient for me.

We have

In so far as M. Millet's remarks on the events of last July contain anything new they are, again, wholly unsupported by evidence. Thus he declares that on the 13th of July the German Foreign Secretary, asked what sort of a régime Germany was prepared to recognise in Morocco,' replied that Germany would simply grant France "sufficient authority to preserve Morocco from anarchy."' This passage purports to be a quotation. Whence is it derived? No information is vouchsafed. It is not permissible to make such statements unless one is prepared to give one's authority. Moreover, what M. Millet says at this point in his discourse does not coincide with what he says. at another. In another place he prefaces his statement that the German Government endeavoured in September to limit the powers it had previously recognised in July by these words: 'Now it is true enough that Herr von Kiderlen expressed his willingness to let France be master of Morocco.' In point of fact we have, of course, the French Foreign Minister's own statement in the Chamber as to what passed in July:

People have asked why territorial concessions were thus spoken of. Why had these questions been examined? I have already told you, it is because the first words which the German Foreign Minister had pronounced had consisted in saying: Morocco you shall have it.' He had even added, * Establish therein your Protectorate, draw up yourselves the arrangement which shall specify the details.''

That disposes of the matter.

M. Millet is not more happy when he refers to the German demands' in the French Congo. There were, as the French Minister has shown, no' demands' in the ordinary sense that word possesses in English, but a suggestion typifying the opening stages of most bargaining bouts. Voici ce que nous demandons,' 10 had said the German Foreign Secretary. Demander is not to demand, but to ask. Naturally, M. Millet omits any reference to the counterbalancing offers of German territory which marked the first indication of the particular portion of the French Congo upon which Germany had set her gaze. It is all of a piece-the determination to poison British public opinion. When M. Millet does happen to give a quotation from an accessible document he not only misquotes, but he actually puts his misquotation in italics. Thus he places the following words into the mouth 'Journal Officiel, December 14, 1911.

See Cattier and others.

10 Idem.

of the German Ambassador when speaking to Sir Edward Grey, as reported to the Budget Commission of the Reichstag by the German Foreign Secretary, and he italicises the last sentence:

If our proposals on the Congo are, as you say, unacceptable [said the Ambassador], this proves that France attaches less importance than is generally supposed to the free exercise in Morocco of pretensions which have never been made the object of an international decision. She must then agree, as well, that a foreign warship may enter a Moroccan harbour.

The true version is very different, destroying the sting in the tail, with its future menace :

If, as Sir E. Grey assumed, our proposals in other directions were considered unacceptable, this merely showed that France appeared to attach less importance than might have been expected to a free exercise of those pretensions of hers which had not obtained international recognition. The presence of a foreign warship in a Moorish port had now to be taken into account. 11

Ab uno disce omnes. Indeed, the one feature in M. Millet's elaboration of The Truth' really deserving of note is the contention he advances as to the main reason' for the despatch of the Panther to Agadir, to which I have already alluded without dissecting it, and with which is bracketed the charge against Germany of hypocrisy with regard to the open door.' M. Millet does not seem to appreciate how his contention damages the British official case which he endeavours to defend. If the main reason' of Germany's action was the feeling that she was being cheated' out of the economic advantages she hoped to obtain through her agreement with France in February 1909, the bottom is knocked out of the British official explanation of the events of July leading up to the Lloyd George exordium, as given in the House of Commons by Sir Edward Grey on the 27th of November last. The Lloyd George speech, which was what set the heather on fire, was defended on the ground that the Foreign Office had reason to fear that Germany was meditating forcing a solution of the Morocco question in the sense of a tripartite partition between herself, France and Spain, from which Britain was to be excluded. True, nothing remained of that defence even before M. Millet's unwitting contribution to its post-destruction; for not only has the German Government denied the suggestion-which, no doubt, counts for nothing in the eyes of some people-but the French Government has denied it,12 and the Spanish Government also-i.e. if we assume, as I think we may, that The Times Madrid despatch of the 24th of

11 Cd. 5992, p. 7.

12 Journal Officiel, December 14, 1911.