Following this, Mr. Shuster, acting under orders from the Persian cabinet to confiscate the property of Prince Shua-es-Sultaneh, a brother of the deposed Shah, sent a body of gendarmes to the Prince's palace. These gendarmes came into conflict with Russian cossacks who were on guard there. The Russian Government immediately demanded from the Persian Government an apology for the pretended insult, and proceeded to invade the country. The apology was duly made, but in the meantime Mr. Shuster wrote a letter to the London Times defending himself against Russian criticisms of his official conduct and making countercharges against the Russian agents, who had given assistance to the exShah. This letter was made by Russia the pretext for continuing the invasion of Persia, and an ultimatum was issued from St. Petersburg demanding of Persia the immediate dismissal of Mr. Shuster, and a promise that for the future no foreigners should be taken into her service without the consent of the Russian and English Governments.

To sum up the list of charges, Persia has regulated her customs service by placing all of its subordinate offices under her Treasurer-General; she has enforced her taxation laws upon all her subjects, high as well as low; she has appointed tax collectors whom she considered efficient, regardless of their nationality; and lastly she has sent a body of gendarmes to seize the property of a rebellious citizen. These are all acts which by the fundamental principles of international law any sovereign state may do. To regulate without interference its domestic affairs is one of the prime incidents of a state's sovereignty. How can Russia contest the rights of Persia in those matters and yet assert (in the paraphrase of Lord Morley) that she "has no aim which would violate the integrity and independence of Persia." It is difficult to see how the agreement of 1907 between Russia and England can be offered as a Justification for the action of the Russian Government, and for the approval by England of its action. There is nothing in that agreement which gives either country any rights as against Persia, and nothing in it which can confer even between the contracting parties any right of political interference in Persia on the part of one of them which the other is bound to support.

One further point deserves comment. On November 9th and 10th Mr. Shuster published in the London Times a letter in which he defends certain general statements made some weeks before and gives details to show that Russia's attitude towards Persian reform was one of hostility and interference, and that England was giving her moral support to

Russia in this matter. The letter was translated into Persian and circulated throughout the country a step for which it is not certain that Mr. Shuster was personally responsible. Conceding that the letter, however true its charges, was a diplomatic blunder, and was in fact calculated to arouse a natural hostility in Persia against Russia, it is again. difficult to see how the act can be construed as giving Russia the casus belli implied in an ultimatum. The letter was in no way an official document of the Persian Government, and to treat it as such was to take the position that a government is criminally responsible for the unauthorized acts of its agents a principle clearly not warranted by international law. The Russian Government could properly do no more than treat the letter as it is common in international intercourse to treat published interviews of a similar character, i. e., to protest diplomatically to the government whose officer has committed the act and to demand an official statement that the act was unauthorized. In no case, however, was any greater injury done to Russia by the letter other than that of its putting before the world certain acts of aggression which Russian officials are charged with having committed; such an injury could only give ground for war when a government has, upon investigation, found the charges to be false, and when it has been unable to obtain redress for them through diplomatic channels. As for the condition imposed upon Persia by the Russian ultimatum that Persia shall for the future appoint no foreigners to official posts without the consent of the Russian and British Governments (a condition modified later into a veto upon appointments), the demand put Persia in the position of either entering upon a war, which would be utterly disastrous to undertake, or of accepting terms which are a clear limitation of its sovereignty. The Mejliss has, however, accepted the terms of the ultimatum, and Mr. Shuster has been dismissed from his position as Treasurer General. The situation which results amounts in fact, if not in law, to a joint protectorate on the part of Russia and Great Britain over Persia under protest. Fuit Ilium.

1

MOROCCO

On November 4, 1911, the authorized representatives of France and Germany signed an agreement granting to France the freedom of action. in political matters which it has long hoped to obtain in Morocco. The

1 Printed in SUPPLEMENT, p. 62.

negotiations culminating in the agreement were exceedingly delicate, extending as they did over a long period of time and threatening on various occasions to lead to open rupture; but statesmanship, patience, and an earnest desire to reach a solution of the thorny question, and a willingness to do so at the cost of forbearance and mutual concession, resulted in an agreement satisfactory to the two governments, although critics on both sides of the Rhine have blamed their governments and expressed no little displeasure with some of the terms of the agreement. To a disinterested observer the importance of the transaction lies not so much in the terms of the agreement as in the fact that France and Germany have agreed upon a question of foreign policy which affects their future relations in a coveted portion of territory, and which menaced at times the peace of the world. The result of the agreement, the terms of which will be presently analyzed, is to give France a free hand in Morocco in political matters, while France yields the German contention for economic freedom and equality of treatment. Each of the contending parties has gained its point, and in the agreement there is neither the eiation of victory nor the bitterness of defeat. The compromise - for the agreement is a compromise of opposing interests determines, and it is hoped upon a permanent basis, the relations of each in Morocco withcut the sacrifice of fundamental positions, and the cloud which for months darkened the political firmament has disappeared without apparent trace of its passage. The statesmen of both countries are therefore to be congratulated upon the satisfactory result of their labors, although it may well be a matter of regret that the agreement affects the future of a state which was not a direct party to the negotiations. In the absence of the official correspondence which passed between France and Germany, it is impossible to trace in detail the various phases of the negotiations which resulted in the agreement of November 4, 1911, but it is possible and sufficient for the present purpose to outline the conditions which suggested the agreement and to forecast in a cautious and tentative. manner its probable results.

Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition failed of its immediate purpose to annex Egypt to France, but the scientific results of the expedition attracted the attention of the world. Champollion's discoveries unveiled its mysteries, laid the foundations of Egyptology, and made its absorption by a European Power a question of time. The failure of France to participate in the Egyption expedition of 1881, which was ostensibly undertaken to restore order, gave England a free hand, and the Sphinx

now looks down upon the Briton firmly seated on the throne of the Pharaohs. The highway to India is practically an English province, and the declaration of April 8, 1904, by which France agreed not to "obstruct the action of Great Britain in that country by asking that a limit of time be fixed for the British occupation or in any other manner," put an end to French ambitions in that part of the world. But the counter declaration by Great Britain, recognizing France's predominant interest in Morocco and leaving it freedom of action, " provided that such action shall leave intact the rights which Great Britain in virtue of treaties, conventions and usage enjoys in Morocco," opened up a future full of hope in the far West. Egypt was indeed lost, but the dream of a French empire from Tunis to the Atlantic seems the not unnatural consequence of the Anglo-French declaration and the Franco-German agreement of November 4, 1911. In the course of last summer, previous to the negotiation of the agreement, an influential French newspaper exclaimed:

Geography has taken us to the Mediterranean and History has fixed us there. France has taken a preponderant part in the three events which dominate the history of the Latin sea: the unification of Italy, the opening of the Suez Canal, and the Europeanization of North Africa. She is alone in being doubly a Mediterranean Power, for she has a long seaboard on either coast. She can group on the Mediterranean a naval force superior to the entire squadrons of her possible opponents. She is preparing by the negotiations, of which Morocco is at present the subject, a consummation of the plans which she has pursued for eighty years under different régimes and by varied means.

As steps in this development, the government of Charles X, when tottering to its fall, sent an expedition in 1830 to Algiers, and, after years of conflict and difficulty, Algiers is incorporated in the French domain. In 1881 a protectorate was established over Tunis, and although this latter territory does not form a department, as in the case of Algiers, it is nevertheless French territory and likely to remain such. The acquisition of Morocco is but the final step in rounding out an African empire, and the establishment of a protectorate is not only foreshadowed by the Franco-German agreement, but was its immediate occasion.

In the earlier decades of the nineteenth century Germany was not in a position to thwart French ambition or to compete for Africa. Prussia

2 Printed in SUPPLEMENT, p. 26.

For the treaty of May 12, 1881, between France and Tunis, see British and Foreign State Papers, Vol. 72.

had problems of its own nearer home. The exclusion of Austria from Germany proper, as the result of the war of 1866, the unification in 1870 of the German states in an empire dominated by Prussia, and of which its king is emperor, enabled Germany, no longer a geographical expression, to claim its share in the outlying portions of the world and to compete in the markets of the world for commercial supremacy. The wise policy of Bismarck, which made a friend of Austria and encouraged it to seek expansion to the south, relieved the new empire of fear from this quarter. The Franco-Prussian War gave Germany the control of the Rhine, which freed the new empire from dread of invasion from the west. Secure at home and respected abroad, Germany has entered upon a career of commercial expansion, as is evidenced by colonies in Africa, spheres of influence in Asia and a preponderating position in Constantinople. While not adverse to the acquisition of territory, as is shown by the cession to Germany of a portion of the French Congo as the consideration of the Moroccan agreement, German policy rather aims, it would seem, to secure the markets of the world for its industry and commerce. Hence its opposition to any action of France in Morocco which would exclude German products.

During the larger portion of the past eighty years in which France has extended its influence in Africa, Italy was a geographical and an historical expression; for, until the acquisition of Rome the states of Italy lacked cohesion and were not united under a centralized and national government. Italy did indeed object to the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunis, in 1881, but opposition from this quarter was not dangerous. The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by AustriaHungary in 1908 precluded that country from objecting on high moral grounds to a French protectorate in Morocco, and the ill-concealed ambition of Italy to establish itself firmly in Tripoli and Cyrenaica rendered it improbable that Italy would resent French aggression in Morocco. "A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind."

Russia is ostensibly the ally of France, and, while it has not lost sight. of Constantinople, its Persian projects render the event unlikely that the Czar would oppose French activity in Morocco, which differs in degree, not in kind, from his plans upon Persia. The Anglo-French declaration of April 8, 1904, previously referred to, reinforced by the Secret Articles of the same date, secured in advance the consent of Great

+ Printed in SUPPLEMENT, p. 29.