But there is reason for the French, indeed necessity for them, to control Morocco. Europe is too near Morocco for the country to be left to anarchy and ignorance and their consequences. Some European Power or Powers must represent Europe there, while the establishment of one other than France would be a constant menace to Algeria and would throw upon France the obligation of devoting to the expense of her colony a greater outlay than it would cost to conquer the Moorish Empire. France must remain in Morocco; and the French--those soldiers and diplomatists whom I have seen and talked with, at any rate--welcome the opportunity that the Shawia tribes have given them, and make the most of it. The assurances of the French Government are of course only diplomatic. Assurances of a temporary occupation were vouchsafed when Tunis was invaded. Nor is it only France that follows this diplomacy. It is for the reason that events threaten to make permanent a certain French occupation that a few Britishers would like to create a difference between France and Great Britain, to annul the Anglo-French agreement. For, should France be stopped--as she is likely to be without British support--it will mean that no country shall regulate Morocco and that another situation like that of the Turk in Europe will be established, to run on an untold term of years. This is what these partisans would like to bring about, because their hostility to the French, beginning in trade and political rivalry, has become now one of sentimental sympathy with the Moors. The case for Morocco is put by the Sultan Mulai Hafid himself in an appeal to the Powers of Europe presented to their Ministers at Tangier in February (1908). The argument has the Eastern fault of waiving rather than undermining the case for France, as, in one instance, where it speaks of peace with Europeans in provinces and cities where there are no foreign troops, a peace that obtains in the interior because the few European residents have left, and in the coast towns because of the lesson of Casablanca. In a ‘free rendering’ of the Arabic original, the correspondent of the _Morning Post_, R. L. N. Johnson, an authority on Morocco and the author of several literary books pertaining to the country, interprets this picturesque document as follows:-- ‘In the name of the Most Merciful God, save from whom is neither device nor might. (Here follow the royal seal, the name of the Foreign Minister addressed, and the customary salutations.) ‘On behalf of the people of Morocco, one and all, many of whom are actual sufferers from what has befallen their dwellings, their brethren, and their families, I lay before you my plaint.