Moors' love of foreign trade we owe almost every step that has led to
our present relations with the Empire. Even while their rovers were
the terror of our merchantmen, as has been pointed out, foreign
traders were permitted to reside in their ports, the facilities
granted to them forming the basis of all subsequent negotiations. Now
that concession after concession has been wrung from their unwilling
Government, and in spite of freedom of residence, travel, and trade in
the most important parts of the Empire, it is disheartening to see the
foreign merchant in a worse condition than ever.

The previous generation, fewer in number, enjoying far less
privileges, and subjected to restrictions and indignities that would
not be suffered to-day, were able to make their fortunes and retire,
while their successors find it hard to hold their own. The "hundred
tonners" who, in the palmy days of Mogador, were wont to boast that
they shipped no smaller quantities at once, are a dream of the past.
The ostrich feathers and elephants' tusks no longer find their way out
by that port, and little gold now passes in or out. Merchant princes
will never be seen here again; commercial travellers from Germany are
found in the interior, and quality, as well as price, has been reduced
to its lowest ebb.

A crowd of petty trading agents has arisen with no capital to speak
of, yet claiming and abusing credit, of which a most ruinous system
prevails, and that in a land in which the collection of debts is
proverbially difficult, and oftentimes impossible. The native Jews,
who were interpreters and brokers years ago, have now learned the
business and entered the lists. These new competitors content
themselves with infinitesimal profits, or none at all in cases where
the desideratum is cash to lend out at so many hundreds per cent. per