Krim's Envoy

Into the Quai d'Orsay (Foreign Office) there strolled last week one Captain Gordon Canning, Britisher. Negligently leaning upon one corner of the desk of an undersecretary, he flipped open the following interesting document, which he claimed to have brought from the war area in Morocco:

"Amersine, Near Ajdir.

"In the name of God, humility, praise and thanks.

"May it be known by these presents that we, by the grace of God, authorize the bearer to receive for us the conditions which France and Spain offered in July last, which may serve as a base of negotiations for peace, so that we may take them into our consideration, examine them and accept or refuse them.

"Let peace be with you.

"Sixteenth Jornada, 1344.

"MOHAMMED BEN ABD-EL-KRIM."

At once a notable stir was created in Paris. Numerous papers, led by Le Matin, demanded that Captain Canning should be fully heard and every effort made to put an end to the expensive and unpopular war which France is waging in Morocco (TIME, Dec. 28 et ante). Meanwhile the Foreign Office coquetted with the idea of giving official cognizance to a purely self-styled envoy.