Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎479v] (83/238)

296 Morocco : the Sultan and the Bashadours.
This sudden departure from the habits and even the
modes of thought of former rulers of Morocco is attributed,
by most observers, to the personal ascendancy and influence
of El Mahdi and to the latters intimacy with Kaid Sir
Harry Maclean, the Scotch Military Instructor of His
Shereefian Majesty’s forces. Sid el-Mahdi-el-Menebhi has
usually filled the post of Minister of War, and, although he
does not always enjoy the titular rank of Grand Vizir, is,
when in favour, the virtual Prime Minister of his Sovereign.
These somewhat pro-English influences have been of late
undoubtedly strengthened and enforced by the Sultan’s
personal regard and esteem for the British Minister, Sir
Arthur Nicolson.
There has, however, been another and scarcely less
eventful factor in the equation—viz., the fear of France,
provoked by the occupation of Tuat on the south-eastern
confines of Morocco, and by the advance, last summer, of
French troops upon the Moorish town of Figuig.
Between these two contending forces the face of the
young Sultan appears, with each succeeding month, to be
set more firmly towards the reforms which he is urged to
effect. Amongst these figure, in the first instance, the
abandonment of the vicious system of the farming out of
the collection of “the tenth,” or tax upon agriculture,
together with the substitution of paid officials, including
Kaids and governors, in the place of the insatiable native
officials now allowed to levy at pleasure upon the towns or
bashalicks confided to their care.
Next in order is the removal of the innumerable barriers
to trade and commerce, with a more general permission to
export produce, hitherto limited to a few articles, such as
beans, maize, aniseed, leather, gum, etc., and, finally, the
establishment of means of communication, such as roads,
bridges, railways, telegraphs, etc.—not so much in the
shape of concessions to foreign companies, but as operations
to be carried out directly by the Government itself.
The dangerous point in connection with these plans is