may, with England's tacit consent, end in results on a scale much more extensive than has been hitherto avowed.[1]
According to information derived from authoritative sources, I gather that there are not believed to be any secret clauses appended to the agreement of April 8, 1904, but that there is thought to be a sort of tacit understanding by which England will allow France a fairly free hand in Morocco, subject to the terms of the secret clauses of the Franco-Spanish agreement—clauses which, if not dictated, were at any rate strongly backed by the Cabinet in London.
Although people may be inclined to read somewhat Machiavellian designs into England's benevolent policy towards France over the Morocco affair, yet they do not go so far as to believe that England's aims and aspirations have been formulated in any document that provides for general complications. Rather are they inclined to think that the present difficulties have taken the Cabinets of Paris and London by surprise, creating a situation that was not foreseen, and which consequently cannot have been provided for in its general consequences by any engagements previously entered into. It is just this want of foresight with which M. Delcassé is reproached; and his political opponents, who were not sparing in their warnings, will not be slow to take advantage of the actual crisis, no matter how it may end, to insist, upon his resignation.[2]
The abnormal prolongation of the present anxious and unsettled crisis only serves to render the position of the Minister for Foreign Affairs still more precarious; and this, perhaps, corresponds to the wishes of Berlin.
Everyone is very anxious to see what the Emperor William will say at Gravelotte on the 11th instant. Since he has decided to give a purely civilian character to the ceremony, it is to be hoped that he means to take advantage of this opportunity to mitigate the effect of his landing at Tangier. But however that may be, the confidence which had been restored in the relations between France and Germany has vanished, and things have gone back to where they were some twenty years ago.
Believe me, etc.,
(Signed) A. LEGHAIT.
- ↑ This would naturally be the view which official circles in Paris desired to impress upon the diplomatic representatives of neutral Powers. The published Conventions of 1904 did not involve a departure from the Madrid Convention (1880), which made of Morocco an international concern. But the Secret Agreements did, for they treated Morocco as a country whose future could be determined according to the ole interests of three Powers: in other words, they converted an international problem into a national one, and sought to solve it in accordance with the nationalistic interests of the three contracting Powers without any reference to the other signatory Powers of the Madrid Convention.
- ↑ This was true but unknown, of course, to the French public. It was the object of British diplomacy to prevent France from acquiring, under the partition scheme, the Mediterranean coast line of Morocco, which British diplomatic and strategic interests required should not fall into the hands of a first class naval Power.
