T HE portfolio of Foreign Affairs is often a lourd
héritage, and hardly had M. de Selves left the
Hotel de Ville for the Quai d'Orsay before he realized
this fact. Simultaneously with the sending of the
Panther to Agadir, the German ambassador at Paris
informed the new Foreign Secretary that certain Ger-
man firms, alarmed at the troubled situation in Mo-
rocco, had appealed to the Imperial Government for
protection, and it was in pursuance of their request
that Germany had dispatched a war-ship charged with
the task of lending aid in case of need. As soon as
peace should be reestablished in this region the gun-
boat had orders to leave Agadir. ¹ Even the inex-
perienced Foreign Secretary realized that the excuse
for sending a war-ship to Agadir was a most palpable
pretext. In the first place, Agadir was a closed port
where no power had the right to exercise police duty,
secondly there was practically no European commerce
there, and Germany had none at all. Finally there
had been no troubles recently in this particular region.
Herr Zimmerman, in commenting on the affair to the
French chargé d'affaires at Berlin, was somewhat more
frank. For his first reason he, too, mentioned the pro-

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