Great Britain has never abused the Protection system,
and there are fewer protected Moors in the service or partnership of
Britons throughout all Morocco than France has in any single town of
importance.
If I had held the power and the will to give protection, I might have been
in Morocco to-day, master of a house and a household, drawing half the
produce of many fields and half the price of flocks of sheep and herds of
goats. Few mornings passed without bringing some persecuted farmer to the
camp, generally in the heat of the day, when we rested on his land. He
would be a tall, vigorous man, burnt brown by the sun, and he would point
to his fields and flocks, "I have so many sheep and goats, so many oxen
for the plough, so many mules and horses, so much grain unharvested, so
much in store. Give me protection, that I may live without fear of my
kaid, and half of all I own shall be yours." Then I had to explain through
Salam that I had no power to help him, that my Government would do no more
than protect me. It was hard for the applicants to learn that they must go
unaided. The harvest was newly gathered, it had survived rain and blight
and locusts, and now they had to wait the arrival of their kaid or his
khalifa, who would seize all they could not conceal,--hawk, locust, and
blight in one.
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