The French Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
note signed by messrs revoil and rosen.
[Received by the Department of State from the French Ambassador October 3, 1905.]
[Translation.]
The negotiations between France and Germany concerning the draft of the programme of the conference on Moroccan affairs have just been concluded. The agreement was reached on a programme which includes:
The organization of the police force; regulations concerning the surveillance and checking of the smuggling of arms; financial reforms, consisting mainly in the establishment of a state bank; study of better proceeds from imposts and new sources of revenue; finally, the determination of certain principles intended to secure economical freedom in the border region.
By means of a special reservation inserted in the draft of the programme it is agreed that the questions of police shall continue to be settled directly and exclusively between France and the Sultan and do not come within the programme of the conference. In the same region the enforcement of the regulations concerning the smuggling of arms will remain the exclusive affair of France and Morocco.
The two governments have agreed to ask Spain whether it would assent to the city of Algeciras being selected as the meeting place of the conference.
As regards the questions of the loan and of the harbor, they have been adjusted as follows: Pressed by the condition of his finances, the Maghzen had applied to a foregin intermediary who resides in Morocco, [Page 673] and in turn had recourse to a group of German banks, in order to obtain a short-term advance, to be repaid out of the next loan. The Moroccan Government offered as a security its real property in the several cities on the coast. An agreement has been effected between the group of German banks and the consortium of French banks to the end of participating in the transaction, which will continue in its character of short-time advance with special security and repayable out of the next loan or by the ways and means of the state bank, the establishment of which is part of the programme of the conference. This transaction does not affect the question of the right of preference of the French consortium.
As regards the building of a breakwater in the port of Tangier, the Moroccan Government had, by a letter addressed to the legation of Germany, under date of March 26, requested the firm of Borgeaud & Reutman to prepare two plans, of which it would select one. Inasmuch as a French company had been authorized at the same time to make a study of the same work, it has been agreed that some time would be allowed for the examination of the company’s rights, and that unless the French company should produce evidence of right identical with that of the German company the latter would carry on the work ordered by the Maghzen.
The draft of the programme and the proposition as to the meeting place of the conference will be submitted without delay by the two governments to the adhesion of the Sultan and to that of the powers signatory to the Madrid Convention or having adhered thereto.
As soon as the propositions concerning the programme and the meeting place shall have been laid before the Sultan, both missions shall leave Fez and return to Tangier.