Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/499

 sufficient to exclude foreign goods from the Marocco markets, The lines of steamers plying on the seaboard, the caravans obtaining their supplies in the interior, all tend to further the industrial revolution in progress throughout the empire, Far more rapid must be the changes us soon us the country is opened up by a regular system of communications. At present the ambassadors proceeding from Tangier to Fez usually take twelve to fourteen days to accomplish this short journey of 120 miles; and although the projected railway from Fez to Lalla Maghnia has been arrested by diplomatic difficulties, the burrier of seclusion along the Algerian frontier must soon yield to outward pressure.

The two nations that have developed the most extensive commercial relations

with Marocco are England and France, the former absorbing about half of the whole foreign trade of the country. But to the share of France should also be added the brisk contraband traffic that has sprung up between Tlemcen and the borderlands. In virtue of the Madrid Convention, signed in 1680, the right of all foreigners to hold property is fully recognised. But the purchase of land can only be made with the preliminary consent of the Government, a consent which is never granted.

Except in the towns where foreigners are settled, the changes effected in the habits and ideas of the people are not sufficiently pronounced to reveal themselves in the local institutions. The schools of the interior still continue to teach little