eges are abused, while, to
begin with, the system itself is unfair to the native. Here again
is an excellent lever for securing reforms by co-operation. Let the
Sultan understand that the sole condition on which such a privilege
can be abandoned is the reform of his whole fiscal and judicial
systems, and that this effected to the satisfaction of the Powers,
these privileges will be abandoned. Nothing could do more to promote
the internal peace and welfare of Morocco than this point rightly
handled.

A third demand, the abolition of foreign postal services in his
country, may appear to many curious and insignificant, but the
circumstances are peculiar. Twenty years ago, when I first knew
Morocco, there were no means of transmitting correspondence up country
save by intermittent couriers despatched by merchants, whom one had to
hunt up at the _cafes_ in which they reposed. On arrival the bundle
of letters was carried round to likely recipients for them to select
their own in the most hap-hazard way. Things were hardly more formal
at the ports at which eagerly awaited letters and papers arrived
by sea. These were carried free from Gibraltar, and delivered on
application at the various consular offices.

At one time the Moorish Government maintained unsatisfactory courier
services between two or three of the towns, but issued no stamps, the
receipt for the courier's payment being of the nature of a postmark,
stamped at the office, which, though little known to collectors, is
the only genuine and really valuable Moorish postage stamp obtainable.
All other so-called Morocco stamps were issued by private individuals,
who later on ran couriers between some two Moorish towns, their income
being chiefly derived from the sale of stamps to collectors. Some were
either entirely bogus services, or only a few couriers were run
to save appearances. Stamps of all kinds were sold at face value,
postmarked or not to order, and as the issues were from time to time
changed, the profits were steady and good. The case was in some ways
analogous to that of the Yangtse and other treaty ports of China,
where I found every consul's wife engaged in designing local issues,
sometimes of not inconsiderable merit. In Morocco quite a circle of
stamp-dealers sprang up, mostly sharp Jewish lads--though not a few
foreign officials contracted the fever, and some time ago a stamp
journal began to be issued in Tangier to promote the sale of issues
which o