29 APRIL 1905, Page 17

The French appear to be convinced that the Pan-Germania party

in Berlin are determined to put in a claim for part of the territory of Morocco. The Echo de Paris, in a paper to which the Times French correspondent attaches great import- ance, affirms that this party, ever since the Russo-Japanese War began, has steadily pressed on the German Foreign Office the necessity of claiming compensation if France, England, and Spain ever agreed upon a future for Morocco. This compensation, they argued, ought to take the form of the Atlantic ports of the Moorish Empire—Rabat, Mogador, and Casabianca—with their Hinterlands, in which Germans would at once grow cotton. Their views were rejected, or rather deprecated, by Count von Biilow ; but they gradually spread among the people, until at last the Emperor made his complaint about the exclusion of Germany from the Anglo- French Agreement, and paid his visit to Tangier. The ultimate idea, of course, is a partition of Morocco, which the Germans declare to be far more fertile than Algeria, between Germany, France, and Spain, the Atlantic sea- board falling to the share of Germany. Russia, it is assumed, cannot oppose, and , Great . Britain will shrink from the 'task. It is quite possible that the Pan-Ger- mans are putting forward demands which they themselves would admit to be unreasonable, in order to cover more moderate proposals ; but our readers will remember the sort of shriek of annoyance 'which went up from Germany when the Anglo-French Agreement first became public. "Is this," said paper after paper, "what you call securing for Germany a place in the sun ? "