Chapter XIV

Resources of Marocco — Moorish Government a hopeless failure — Future prospects of Marocco — Objections to European interference — Answers to such objections.

Scientific travellers, whose attention was mainly engaged in their own special pursuits, and whose opportunities for gaining information were restricted by ignorance of the native languages, have no claim to speak with authority of the condition and prospects of a country so extensive as the Marocco Empire. But it would be strange if we had failed to derive some conclusions from the results of our personal observation and the information gained on the spot.

Of the material resources of Marocco it is difficult to say too much. Even under existing conditions, a great portion of the territory is extremely fertile, and supplies for export a large amount of agricultural produce. The two natural disadvantages with which it has to contend are, occasional deficient rainfall and the ravages of locusts. For the first, the remedy is to be sought in irrigation. The unfailing streams from the Atlas already serve to a limited extent; but the area of productive land might by intelligent management be very largely increased. We have seen an estimate of the quantity of water discharged by the five principal streams that fall into the Atlantic north of the Atlas, which fixes the amount at 9,000 cubic feet per second; and if to these were added the Moulouya, which falls into the Mediterranean, and the Siss, the Draha, the Asakka, and the Sous, which drain the southern slopes of the main chain, we should probably double the above estimate, and find an aggregate amount sufficient to irrigate three millions of acres. These figures must of course be considered as mere guesses; but there can be no doubt that they indicate a very large reserve of unused natural resources. With an almost unequalled climate, there is scarcely any one of the productions of the warmer temperate and subtropical zones that may not here be obtained. Besides grain, the country now supplies large quantities of olive oil, dates, oranges, and almonds, with a little cotton. The latter may be largely increased; and there seems to be no reason why coffee, tea, sugar, indigo, and other valuable exotic produce, should not be raised in the southern provinces.

There can be no doubt of the existence of mineral wealth in the Great Atlas. We have the direct testimony of Leo Africanus to the working of mines of copper and iron in the districts visited by him; and specimens brought by Shelluh mountaineers show that ores of lead, silver, nickel, and cobalt are likewise to be found. The forests of the Atlas would, if saved from wanton destruction, be a further important source of national wealth.

Rich in all the material elements of prosperity, this great territory, whose area may be roughly estimated at 190,000 square miles, is cursed by a Government which has in the past wrought nothing but ruin and degradation, and whose continued existence forbids the faintest hope of future improvement.

Nothing seems to be more clear than the decadence of the race who now represent the Arab conquerors of Mauritania. In their better days they united to martial vigour and skill some aptitude for progress in arts and learning. Works of public utility were not unknown; and, at a time when nearly all Europe was plunged in intellectual darkness, Fez was one of the chief centres of Arabic culture. The history of the last four centuries in Marocco has been one of continuous and uninterrupted decline. Unable to establish their authority over the larger portion of the region which they claim to govern, the Sultans have left to anarchy the mountain region into which the best part of the population was compelled to retire when driven from the fertile lower country. Over the provinces wherein they are able to enforce it, the rule of the Moorish Sultans is little else than an organised system of extortion, in which unchecked license is given to the agents of the central authority, on the sole condition of making this the final depository of whatever wealth the country can produce. The springs of industry and enterprise are broken; no man can dream of improving his own condition or that of his family, unless by elaborate fraud and concealment he can hoard up wealth, which he dare not employ in any way useful to the community.[1]

When we inquire what prospect there may be of any escape from the miserable condition to which Marocco is now reduced, no hopeful answer can be found. The most sanguine believer in the future of the Mohammedan races can suggest nothing better than the chance of the appearance of a Sultan, intelligent and energetic, and powerful enough to revive the traditions of the better days when rulers took some thought for the welfare of their subjects, and who might initiate an era of security and progress. But, to say nothing of the improbability of the appearance of such a man in a family that by frequent intermixture with the black race has become more Negro than Moorish, it seems a pure illusion to imagine that even an extraordinary man seated on the throne of Marocco, and surrounded by such agents as he would have at hand, could accomplish salutary reforms, and, more than that, to suppose that these could have any permanence. It is conceivable that if the Moor and Arab did not stand in the way, and the Berber stock were restored to their original inheritance, a great ruler might overcome their fatal tendency to tribal decomposition, weld them into a nation, and set them on the path of progress. History affords examples of some such transformation among vigorous barbarians or semi-savages. But with an effete race, corrupted by luxury, who have lost the spirit, but preserved many of the traditions, of a decayed civilisation, no such miracle is to be worked. Men of great powers, such as one cannot expect to see on the throne of Marocco, have ere now failed in the attempt, or the little they have effected has died with them.

No rational believer in progress can cling to the belief that this is the spontaneous tendency of all branches of the human race, the ultimate condition to which, with whatever delay, all must conform. Far from this, all history shows that the task of leading mankind on the onward road has always been the privilege of a few races only. The larger part of the earth is even now inhabited by people either in a stationary or a retrograde condition, and of the latter state Marocco affords one of the most striking examples.

The one reasonable prospect of improvement in the condition of Marocco is to be sought in its passing under the control of a civilised State, strong enough to overcome speedily the inevitable resistance of the Moorish ruling class, and advanced enough to consult the welfare of the people it undertakes to govern. If we ask what European State is by character and circumstances best fitted for such an undertaking the answer must be—France. Having already achieved with tolerable success a similar task in the adjoining region of Northern Africa, the French have every motive to add to their possessions a territory offering far greater natural advantages; and it is probable that they would have already effected the conquest, but for the inevitable jealousy of other European Powers. The French are not successful colonists; nor have the economic results of their annexation of Algeria been as brilliant as might have been expected. But in Marocco colonisation is not to be sought or desired. Under a government affording security for industry the Berber would settle in the unoccupied lands of the lower country, and carry out under intelligent control the works which would fit them for a large increase of population.

Many readers who hold to the traditional political ideas of the past will shrink from the conclusion here expressed. Not concerning themselves with the results of such a change on the future condition of Marocco, they will urge that such a great territorial extension of the French possessions in Africa would increase to a formidable extent the power of our ancient rival throughout the Mediterranean region; and they will with justice argue that it is not for the general interest of the civilised world that any single Power should obtain a preponderating influence over the rest.

Experience seems to supply an answer to these objections. If extensive foreign possessions be in some respects a source of strength to a country, they not less certainly are a cause of weakness in others; and in the case of a Power not holding maritime supremacy, the possession of valuable dependencies easily assailable by sea acts as a weighty check on the aggressive tendencies of the people.

A cordial acquiescence in the extension of French territory westward, might reasonably obtain in return a diminution of the jealousy with which our neighbours view the increase of English influence on the east side of the African continent. A cynic may remark that the policy here suggested would resemble an agreement between freebooters for the division of spoil; but, in truth, we believe it to be a mistake to suppose that there would be any spoil to distribute. It is more than doubtful whether any future extension of the African possessions either of France or England would more than pay the necessary expenses of occupation and administration. The gain to both countries would be of a different order—the outlet provided for the healthful play of energies cramped within the limits of an old society, and the sense, invigorating to the whole nation, of accomplishing a useful part in the world’s development.

Objections to every attempt on the part of a modern civilised State to undertake the government of inferior races have been urged on various grounds by writers of the highest reputation.

The barriers established by differences in mental condition, in traditions, and inherited ideas, between peoples in a different stage of development, are easily shown to create formidable difficulties in the way of mutual understanding and appreciation, which must precede all useful efforts to carry the less advanced races along the path of progress. The history of British India where, at least during the present century, the experiment has been tried on the largest scale, and with the most genuine regard for the welfare of the governed populations, supplies many an example of the errors inevitable in so difficult an enterprise. Measures devised with the best intentions have sometimes failed altogether in achieving the expected effect, or, when this has been attained, have created discontent, because not corresponding with the ideas of the native population.

How much better it would be, say objectors of this class, to let these backward races work out for themselves the problems of material and mental development, in conformity with the conditions which nature and history have imposed, than to attempt, in the face of your own admitted ignorance, to play the part of Providence towards them.

If the discussion were to turn upon the destiny of a country wherein the elementary conditions of social order had been secured, wherein progress of some kind, at however slow a pace, was not an impossibility, it might be possible to admit the force of these arguments. But it is forgotten that in point of fact most barbarous countries have failed to reach this indispensable preliminary stage. However diverse the conditions and the ideas of the human race, the primal requisites for social order are everywhere the same. Security for person and property, the protection of the weak against the strong, tribunals before which justice can be obtained without fear or favour—where these do not exist, the Power, whatever it may be, that confers them on a people is a beneficent one, and for the sake of these any errors that it may commit in its government will be condoned by posterity.

These remarks apply with especial force to such a country as Marocco, where, under the yoke of invaders, the greater part of the population has been for centuries constantly declining in material and mental condition.

When all has been said, it must be felt that theoretical considerations are little likely to prevail against that which history declares to be the uniform condition of human progress. As a general rule the most vigorous nations are those in which the increase of population is most rapid, and extension into new territories is their inevitable destiny. Statesmen and rulers may to some extent guide and control, but they are powerless to prevent the operation of natural laws. The choice, in regard to the inferior races, seems to be whether they shall fall under the rule of the stronger, and be gradually modified by the influence of new ideas and institutions, or whether they shall disappear altogether and give place to the new comer. Where, as has too often happened, the latter process is effected by injustice and violence, the evil to the world arises not so much from the loss of a race unfitted to bear the strain of competition, as from the moral deterioration that ensues to the invaders.

Amongst the opponents of the extension of European rule over the adjacent continents must be reckoned those who base their objections mainly on economic grounds. If the question of the French occupation of Marocco should arise in a practical shape, it is little likely that French statesmen will be withheld by considerations which, even in England, have not obtained wide acceptance; and it would be out of place to discuss them here. It is, indeed, impossible to deny that there is a share of truth in the views of those who hold that colonies and foreign possessions do not, as a general rule, directly add to the prosperity of a country. If the aim of any nation were merely to attain a high level of material well-being, and it could either restrain its citizens from intercourse with less civilised people, or be content to forego the duty of protecting them, it might be possible to avoid entering on the path which inevitably leads to extension of territory. Fortunately for the human race, such ideas never have prevailed among those nations which have played any important part in history. If the instinct of adventure, that has brought the more advanced races into contact with the barbarian and the savage, has always been alloyed by association with the baser passions of some, it has also been ennobled by the higher aims of others. To lay, in new regions, the foundations of civil society; to establish, more or less imperfectly, the reign of order and justice, and to secure the protection of the weak against the strong—these have been the tasks hitherto achieved by the ruling races of the world; and as knowledge has increased, as the difficulties of social progress have become better understood, and a stricter code of justice in dealing with the inferior races is gradually becoming established, it is allowable to hope that the inevitable changes may be accomplished with less of human suffering and with better success.

Rome might have been a happier State if its citizens had confined their ambition to make it a commercial emporium for the neighbouring tribes of middle Italy, and, content with self-defence, had refrained from all distant enterprise; Carthage need not have tempted her fate, if she had been satisfied with her own corner of Africa; but then the world would have had no history, and the series of changes from which modern civilisation has been developed would have been for ages, it may be for ever, delayed.

Of the entire African continent it may be truly asserted that, with the exception of the small portions held by England and France, its condition, for at least thirty centuries, has been either stationary or positively retrograde. The main cause that has maintained unbroken the long night of barbarism throughout so vast a region must be sought in the physical obstacles that prevented the ruling races of the world from extending their power southwards from the shores of the Mediterranean. For a time it appeared that the Saracen conquerors of North Africa were destined to spread the light of a relatively high civilisation over a great part of the continent. But that race is effete; it is gradually losing ground; and it remains for the nations that claim to lead the van in the onward march of the human race to undertake the work that awaits them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The stories and fables given in Appendix G afford a striking commentary on the working of the existing system of so-called government in Marocco.]

APPENDICES.