The Sultan of Morocco appears determined to lose his throne,
or, as an alternative, to force France to protect him by active intervention. His people already suspect and hate him as a man who prefers the ideas of the West—in truth, he only loves Western toys, motor-cars, and the like—and now he has quarrelled with one of his stoutest supporters. El Menehbi, as he is called, the Moorish. Minister of War, besides being a fighting man of repute, is the strictest Mussulman in Morocco, and as such has a great influence both with the "fanatical" party and with the most active of the tribes. He has served the dynasty well, but the Sultan now distrusts him, and has issued a decree confiscating his property. He will therefore be compelled either to rebel, or to take refuge in some Mahommedan country, probably Turkey, until a revolution has occurred. A rising is almost certain ; and although the Sultan is protected by his birth, as the representative of Mahommed's daughter Fatima, and by some support in money from France, he is a weak man, and will probably be deprived of his throne. His successor, in that event, would be necessarily hostile to Europeans. Further complications are to be found in the fact that El Menehbi is a British protected subject, and that at Tangier on Wednes- day some soldiers of the Sultan fired on a boat's crew from a French man-of-war.
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