Thus in estimating the future of Islam as a political body, and in view
of the disparity proved to exist at all points between modern Europe and
its ancient rival in the matter of physical strength, we must be
prepared to see the latter submit at no distant date to great
territorial losses along the whole line of its European frontier. Few, I
think, to begin from the extreme west, will be inclined to doubt that,
should the French succeed in thoroughly crushing the Arab movement which
they have provoked in Tunis, and which will in all probability be
extended next summer to Morocco and Tripoli, the beginning of the next
century will see what is left of the Barbary Coast in their possession,
or in that of Spain or Italy; and the greater part of the cultivable
lands fronting the Mediterranean occupied by their immigrants. What
France has done or attempted to do in Algiers her two neighbours may
possibly achieve with even more success in Morocco and western Tripoli,
for the Spaniards and Italians are both eminently colonizing races, and
the hill country of Barbary is little different in climate from their
own. Tripoli, on the break up of the Ottoman Empire, will certainly
tempt Italian statesmen, and Spain has already a footing on the African
coast in Tetuan.
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