III.

JOURNALISM    IN    MOROCCO

A CENTURY ago "a late eloquent writer remarked
that ' the ancients did not, like Archimedes, want a
spot on which to fix their engines, but they wanted an
engine to move the moral world.' The press is that
engine! To the want of it may be fairly attributed the
ignorance, the stupidity, the slavery of the African
nations.    The art of printing is unknown in Barbary." ^

A correspondent of a Scotch newspaper, commenting in
1873 on the difficulty of obtaining trustworthy information
fore the Dawn, as to the trade of this country, wrote: "Let any¬
one at home attempt to get such information from any
books hitherto published, and they will find how inadequate
are all the resources of information. The absence of the
printing press—the absence of everything in the shape of
a newspaper—causes the history of the place to be washed
away by the waves of time, and the only record of the
place is found in the records oi the passing visitor, who
must necessarily tinge his story from his own standpoint,
or clothe his account in the borrowed colours of his
informant." Now a better state exists. The Press has
been established in the Empire, and through its means
the outside world is learning of the immense natural
advantages possessed by Morocco, and of the great
disadvantages under which it labours.

To Mr. Gregory T. Abrines, originally of Gibraltar, is

1 Jackson, Preface.

533