In Morocco Part 13

Jetties built on each side of the channel.

Quay 100 metres long.

Building of sheds, depots, warehouses, steam-cranes, etc.

At the ports of Fedalah, Mazagan, Safi, Mogador and Agadir similar plans are in course of execution.

COMMERCE

COMPARATIVE TABLES

1912 1918

Total Commerce Total Commerce Fcs. 177,737,723 Fcs. 386,238,618

Exports Exports Fcs. 67,080,383 Fcs. 116,148,081

ROADS BUILT

National roads 2,074 kilometres

Secondary roads 569 "

RAILWAYS BUILT

622 kilometres

LAND CULTIVATED

1915 1918

Approximate area Approximate area

21,165.17 hectares 1,681,308.03 hectares

JUSTICE

1. Creation of French courts for French nationals and those under French protection. These take cognizance of civil cases where both parties, or even one, are amenable to French jurisdiction.

2. Moroccan law is Moslem, and administered by Moslem magistrates.

Private law, including that of inheritance, is based on the Koran. The Sultan has maintained the principle whereby real property and administrative cases fall under native law. These courts are as far as possible supervised and controlled by the establishment of a Cherifian Ministry of Justice to which the native Judges are responsible. Special care is taken to prevent the alienation of property held collectively, or any similar transactions likely to produce political and economic disturbances.

3. Criminal jurisdiction is delegated to Pashas and Cadis by the Sultan, except of offenses committed against, or in conjunction with, French nationals and those under French protection. Such cases come before the tribunals of the French Protectorate.

EDUCATION

The object of the Protectorate has been, on the one hand, to give to the children of French colonists in Morocco the same education as they would have received at elementary and secondary schools in France; on the other, to provide the indigenous population with a system of education that shall give to the young Moroccans an adequate commercial or manual training, or prepare them for administrative posts, but without interfering with their native customs or beliefs.

Before 1912 there existed in Morocco only a few small schools supported by the French Legation at Tangier and by the Alliance Francaise, and a group of Hebrew schools in the Mellahs, maintained by the Universal Israelite Alliance.

1912. Total number of schools 37 1918. " " " " 191 1912. Total number of pupils 3006 1918. " " " " 21,520 1912. Total number of teachers 61 1918. " " " " 668

In addition to the French and indigenous schools, sewing-schools have been formed for the native girls and have been exceptionally successful.

Moslem colleges have been founded at Rabat and Fez in order to supplement the native education of young Mahometans of the upper cla.s.ses, who intend to take up wholesale business or banking, or prepare for political, judicial or administrative posts under the Sultan's government. The course lasts four years and comprises: Arabic, French, mathematics, history, geography, religious (Mahometan) instruction, and the law of the Koran.

The "Ecole Superieure de la langue arabe et des dialectes berberes" at Rabat receives European and Moroccan students. The courses are: Arabic, the Berber dialects, Arab literature, ethnography, administrative Moroccan law, Moslem law, Berber customary law.

MEDICAL AID

The Protectorate has established 113 medical centres for the native population, ranging from simple dispensaries and small native infirmaries to the important hospitals of Rabat, Fez, Meknez, Marrakech, and Casablanca.

Mobile sanitary formations supplied with light motor ambulances travel about the country, vaccinating, making tours of sanitary inspection, investigating infected areas, and giving general hygienic education throughout the remoter regions.

Native patients treated in 1916 over 900,000 " " " " 1917 " 1,220,800

Night-shelters in towns. Every town is provided with a shelter for the indigent wayfarers so numerous in Morocco. These shelters are used as disinfection centres, from which suspicious cases are sent to quarantine camp at the gates of the towns.

_Central Laboratory at Rabat._ This is a kind of Pasteur Inst.i.tute. In 1917, 210,000 persons were vaccinated throughout the country and 356 patients treated at the Laboratory for rabies.

_Clinics for venereal diseases_ have been established at Casablanca, Fez, Rabat, and Marrakech.

More than 15,000 cases were treated in 1917.

_Ophthalmic clinics_ in the same cities gave in 1917, 44,600 consultations.

_Radiotherapy._ Clinics have been opened at Fez and Rabat for the treatment of skin diseases of the head, from which the native children habitually suffer.

The French Department of Health distributes annually immense quant.i.ties of quinine in the malarial districts.

Madame Lyautey's private charities comprise admirably administered child-welfare centres in the princ.i.p.al cities, with dispensaries for the native mothers and children.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] The loss of Morocco would inevitably have been followed by that of the whole of French North Africa.

[22] During the first year of the war roads were built in Morocco by German prisoners; and it was because Germany was so thoroughly aware of the economic value of the country, and so anxious not to have her prestige diminished, that she immediately protested, on the absurd plea of the unwholesomeness of the climate, and threatened reprisals unless the prisoners were withdrawn.

VII