Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/142

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
138
JEAN JAURÈS

they do not always remain secret and ignored by those who may have an interest in knowing about them.…"

These mistakes of impatience, of imprudence, of deception, were not the only ones. Jaures declared there had been provocation towards the people of Morocco, unfairness towards the Sultan.

"At the same time faults against the Sultan himself. You told us yesterday … that the Sultan was at the end of his resources, that all his resources were hypothetical, that the entire revenue from his customs was absorbed by the payment of loans. Yes, but as the consequence of a deliberate policy. This is what was desired.… First 40% was taken from him, then 60%, and it was said: 'When he has not a penny left, when he cannot maintain himself any more, when he can no longer pay his miserable little army, when he can only live by squeezing the sole tribes that are squeezable, that is, those that hitherto remain faithful to him, then there will be revolt, anarchy, and the Sultan will be reduced to powerlessness and we shall have a pretext to interfere.' This was the calculation of the Government, this was the calculation of the colonials.…

"When one has manœuvred in this way … to ruin the Act of Algeciras, one cannot allege that it was condemned to disappear by its own defects.…