'Great Kaids' policy. By his winning personality and his brilliant reputation as a successful administrator of native races he has been able to secure the personal loyalty of the three great kaids, Glaoui, Gundafi, and Mtuggui; their loyalty even stood the crucial test of the Great War, when the protectorate was almost denuded of French troops to strengthen the Western Front. He has been prevented from pursuing the same policy in the Riff by the action of the Spaniards, and especially of their King, who in a speech at Rome gave to the Spanish aggression that religious character of a contest between the Cross and the Crescent that every other responsible person had been labouring to eliminate, It has thus been impossible for Maréchal Lyautey to enter into personal relations with the Riff leader and to come to an understanding with him on lines similar to his relations with the great kaids of the south. And it is particularly unfortunate for the French Government that their greatest assets in the pacification of Morocco-the prestige and charm of their distinguished High Commissioner-are ruled out by the fear of offending Spanish pride. Abd El Krim, the Riff leader, served his apprenticeship to public affairs in the Spanish Government offices at Melilla, where he was on intimate terms with Primo de Rivera, then engaged on similar work, and now the generalissimo of the Spanish forces vainly attempting to force alien rule upon a brave and valiant people rightly struggling to be free. Abd El Krim has been chosen by the Riffi as their leader because he is a man of some education and experience of affairs, considered very level-headed by those Europeans who have had the pleasure of meeting him and of hearing his views on the present situation. According to him, the Riffi desire nothing but to be left alone. They are prepared to allow Europeans to come into their country and open any mines they may be able to discover, but on the distinct understanding that they do not attempt any interference with the political status of the country; and that they honourably accept the position of privileged foreigners and do not seek to go beyond it. In the 'sixties of last century, when Lord John Russell was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Riffi actually asked to be placed under British protection, subject only to the condition that Sir John Drummond Hay should be their ruler. This, of course, would have led to too many complications with our jealous neighbours, and so the proposal never got beyond the stage of a confidential communication. But it shows what the Riffi are when well treated and in contact with men they feel they can trust. And it seems to the present writer to give them some claim to our moral support in the impossible position in which diplomatic blundering has placed them. The Times has from the first spoken of them as 'rebels': rebels against whom?—— against a Sultan whose temporal authority they have never accepted, and who has never been able to enforce it upon them? I spent some months last winter in Tangier, and it used to make my blood boil to see Spanish aeroplanes leaving neutral territory daily to fly over the Anjera hills and drop bombs upon defenceless villages, from which all the fighting men had gone to the front, and to hear of them actually mining the paths leading to these villages and so causing the deaths of innocent women and children. It struck me as an outrage that motor trolley-loads of munitions and food should be allowed to leave daily for the Spanish lines, to the profit of the Tangier Jews, but to the eternal disgrace of the European authorities in the international zone. No attempt was made to enforce the neutrality of Tangier; on the contrary, it was treated as a Spanish base. The town was continually invaded by Spanish officers and their miserable men— most of them doomed to be shot at long range by the invisible Riffi. During all this time, and in spite of these gross provocations, the Riffi, both in the town and in the surrounding zone, kept quiet; and only a few days ago The Times reported that, after the recent disturbances in Tangier, 'One hundred armed tribesmen from the villages in the Tangier zone presented themselves to the captain commanding the French-officered native police and volunteered their services for the maintenance of law and order.' When it is remembered that 85 per cent. of the Berber population in the Tangier zone are of Riff race, this evidence of reasonableness and good-will is very striking. After all, what have the Spaniards to offer the Riffi in exchange for the pride of independence? Syphilis and bad spirits; with a record going back 500 years of cruelty and incompetence in colonial administration. I have seen Ceuta; and I could imagine no worse fate for any country than to have a series of Ceutas in its midst. The Riff women are justly famous for their modesty and virtue; they are not Africans, but are more like Breton or Welsh women. Imagine what an offence the neighbourhood of a Spanish military camp must be to such women. To turn now to the French side of the trouble. I spent a short time in Fez last Easter, and found the country quiet and safe to travel anywhere, except, perhaps, in certain districts adjoining the Atlas range, where military operations were still in progress. The Riff frontier has never been defined. Maréchal Lyautey has laid it down as a colonial maxim never to define a frontier.1 This enables you to take advantage of any opportunity to extend your 1 'Je vous en prie, pénétrez-vous de cette formule: aux colonies ne délimitez jamais' ("Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar," p. 470; ed. 1921). rule, and to retire without 'losing face' if circumstances compel you to do so. The French maps are significant on this point. I have before me the Carte administrative et militaire, in which the boundaries of the various civil and military charges are laid down; those extending towards the Riff are not closed that is to say, they are clearly defined on the east, west and south, but the northern side, i.e. that towards the Riff frontier, is left blank, whilst the frontier itself is shown by a broad hatching-no line at all. The excuse for the French operations north of Fez is that the Riffi have been raiding into French territory. The Riffi, like everybody else, must eat to live, and the wild and bleak character of his mountains affords scant opportunity for peaceful agriculture. So for centuries past he has been in the habit of coming down into the fertile plains north of the Wergha (one of the tributaries of the Sebu) and supplementing the dearth of his native land from the plenty of these plains. The French knew all about this when they pushed forward their military posts last year beyond the Wergha. Four or five years ago they pushed their military posts up to what is regarded as the Riff frontier in the neighbourhood of Wazzan, within a short distance of Sheshawen, which was then the furthest limit of the Spanish advance, and this may well have alarmed the Riffi and made them apprehensive of being cut off from their immemorial food country. These fears they would regard as confirmed when the French advanced last year across the Wergha. It was, in fact, asking for trouble. The French were out for an extension of territory, which they can neither settle nor populate-' painting the map red,' as we call it; whilst the Riffi were out to save themselves from effective starvation. The situation is very like that on our own North-West Frontier in India-except that the Riffi is a white man, if wild. We do not attempt to invade Afghanistan every time the Wazirs or the Mahsuds, or any other half-starved, unruly tribe, make a raid over the Indian frontier. For many years we subsidised the Amir, kept an Agent at his capital, and took charge of his foreign relations. Let the French do the same in the Riff: let them acknowledge Abd El Krim as Emir, and pay him an annual subsidy so long as he keeps his border tribes in order. But, as there is no advancing Russia just beyond the Riff to threaten the protectorate of Morocco, there is no reason for the French to claim any right to interfere with Abd El Krim's foreign relations. For this is what they have been trying to do ever since the Madrid agreement was signed, namely, to assert the sovereignty of the Sultan of Morocco over the Riff, and so to claim, as the protecting Power, authority to control the Riff's foreign relations. In furtherance of this claim they have caused the Sultan to appoint a Khalifa, resident at Tetuan, as his representative, in nominal control of the foreign relations of the Spanish protectorate. Against this action the Spaniards have made futile protests, and have been referred by the French to the terms of their agreement, which do lend a certain colour to the French claim. But, as the Spaniards have now practically withdrawn to the coast and failed to establish any protectorate, there is no further need of these subtleties. The Riffi have effectively asserted their independence, which ought never to have been challenged. Let France and Spain acknowledge it and cease their wasteful expenditure on an unjust war, which neither of them can afford to continue; let Spanish pride stand aside when its further indulgence may threaten the peace of Europe. The latest news is that France and Spain are going to increase the strength of the tabors, or native military police, in the Tangier international zone, on the pretext that Abd El Krim might take it into his head to attack Tangier. But he is not likely to do anything so foolish so long as the European authorities in Tangier insist upon the neutrality of the international zone being respected. But the flagrant violations of its neutrality by the Spaniards, to which allusion has already been made, must cease if Tangier is to be safe. Let it be frankly admitted that the Riff is an independent State, and let the accusation of rebellion be withdrawn-let the neutrality of the international zone be enforced, then there will be no provocation to any hostile action from the Riff. The Tangier-Fez railway could then be rapidly completed and would come into action as an important aid in the settlement of the, at present, disturbed region of the Jebala, and in the peaceful development of northern Morocco. A. S. Moss BLUNDELL. 1925 THE RELIGION OF THE UNDERGRADUATE [Two articles under this title by undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge appeared in the May number of this Review.] A CLASS orator at Harvard, speaking with greater wit perhaps than verity, remarked that he understood there was agitation afoot for a new chapel, the inference being that the present chapel was too large. This sentiment is quite in keeping with the prayer which was offered at a conference of Christian students for 'Godless Harvard. But why has Harvard this reputation-in some quarters at least and is it deserved ? In the first place, compulsory chapel was abolished many years ago. Harvard led in this movement, which is rapidly spreading to-day, and it is not without significance that Yale has adopted voluntary chapel for the coming year. This is all in frank recognition of the fact that compulsory chapel defeats its own purpose, unless, as in some smaller schools, its purpose is not primarily religious. Compulsory chapel in an age of voluntary religious belief is an anachronism, and it is patent that a college which sponsors independence of thought cannot logically be a party to coercion of belief. Without labouring the point, I think that voluntary chapel is a salutary and enlightened measure, that it stimulates a truly reverent attitude on the part of those who do wish to attend the chapel service. However small the attendance may be, it is better to have only ten devout worshippers than a thousand noisy, bored, or distracted students filling the pews. Compulsory education is one thing; compulsory religion quite another. What of attendance at this voluntary chapel? Though I think the number who attend the services at the college chapel, or at any church for that matter, is no index to the number who believe in a God or who would include the Deity in some teleology, it may clarify the ensuing discussion to have the figures before us. Of about 3000 students who entered the college in the fall of 1924, 2488 signified that they were affiliated in some degree with a recognised Church or sect. But the average attendance at the Sunday morning service was only 282, while the number who were |