A second point named by the Sultan for submission to the conference is the urgency of submitting all inhabitants of the country without distinction to the reformed taxation; a reasonable demand if the taxes were reasonable and justly assessed, but who can say at present that they are either? The exchequer is undoubtedly defrauded of large sums by the exemptions enjoyed by foreigners and their _protégés_, on account of the way in which these privileges are abused, while, to begin with, the system itself is unfair to the native. Here again is an excellent lever for securing reforms by co-operation. Let the Sultan understand that the sole condition on which such a privilege can be abandoned is the reform of his whole fiscal and judicial systems, and that this effected to the satisfaction of the Powers, these privileges will be abandoned. Nothing could do more to promote the internal peace and welfare of Morocco than this point rightly handled.
A third demand, the abolition of foreign postal services in his country, may appear to many curious and insignificant, but the circumstances are peculiar. Twenty years ago, when I first knew Morocco, there were no means of transmitting correspondence up country save by intermittent couriers despatched by merchants, whom one had to hunt up at the _cafés_ in which they reposed. On arrival the bundle of letters was carried round to likely recipients for them to select their own in the most hap-hazard way. Things were hardly more formal at the ports at which eagerly awaited letters and papers arrived by sea. These were carried free from Gibraltar, and delivered on application at the various consular offices.
At one time the Moorish Government maintained unsatisfactory courier services between two or three of the towns, but issued no stamps, the receipt for the courier's payment being of the nature of a postmark, stamped at the office, which, though little known to collectors, is the only genuine and really valuable Moorish postage stamp obtainable. All other so-called Morocco stamps were issued by private individuals, who later on ran couriers between some two Moorish towns, their income being chiefly derived from the sale of stamps to collectors. Some were either entirely bogus services, or only a few couriers were run to save appearances. Stamps of all kinds were sold at face value, postmarked or not to order, and as the issues were from time to time changed, the profits were steady and good. The case was in some ways analogous to that of the Yangtse and other treaty ports of China, where I found every consul's wife engaged in designing local issues, sometimes of not inconsiderable merit. In Morocco quite a circle of stamp-dealers sprang up, mostly sharp Jewish lads--though not a few foreign officials contracted the fever, and some time ago a stamp journal began to be issued in Tangier to promote the sale of issues which otherwise would not have been heard of.