The Daily News Letter

Algiers.

A tea at Boston in 1773 provoked a storm which led to Britain losing her American colonies.

Today, 162 years later, wine has let loose a storm over Northern Africa which may not calm before France has lost the rich province of Algeria and her other North African possessions.

Just as in the America of George Washington the stubbornness of the British Government over excise regulations gave the final impetus to a movement of discontent, so the French discrimination against the import into France at cut-throat competitive prices of cheap North African wine—the staple product of Algeria—has been the spark to light up the long-threatened insurrection of 6,000,000 Algerians against the French Government.

Civil disorder and open mutiny are sweeping French North Africa from the never entirely pacified Morocco in the west, through Algeria in the center to Tunisia in the east.

Anti-French and anti-Jewish riots have taken place in Fez, Constantine, and Sidi bel Abbes, at Setif and in Tunis.

Men and women have been killed, while troops who were called out to restore order looked on.

Police stations have been stormed, loyal constables knifed, shot or hurled to their death through windows, shops in Jewish quarters have been wrecked and looted, the Jews being hated by the Arab population as the helpmates of the hated government.

The native Algerian troops are no longer reliable. Three weeks ago, at Setif, native troops actually joined the population in a wild orgy of rebellion, in which police garrisons were stormed, policemen killed, and the Jewish quarter of the city sacked.

The French Government is naturally alarmed at this situation. For trouble in North Africa weakens France in Europe, where she cannot afford to be weak with a new, bellicose Germany waiting for the day of revenge.

One of the first steps likely to be taken is the withdrawal of the native Algerian troops from Algeria, their transport to France and other parts of the French empire, their replacement in Algeria by French and Senegalese troops.

A special high commission has been appointed to watch over the affairs of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, and report on the necessary measures to the Cabinet.

The inter-Ministerial commission of Mussulman affairs has been placed under the direct control of Premier Flandin himself.

It is probable that steps will be taken in the near future to abolish the semi-autonomy of the local administration and place the country under the direct and dictatorial control of its able Governor, M. Carde.

The revolt movement in Algeria, from all accounts, is as strong as that of Hitler in Germany, of the Fascists in Italy, and the Nationalists in Turkey.

The leader of the movement—the Hitler of Algeria, as he is called—is a young doctor named Ben Djelloul.

He was educated in France, studied in French universities, and worked in French hospitals before going back to his native land.

During his first years Ben Djelloul was a quiet and law-abiding medical practitioner. He took no hand in politics.

But the seed of the new Islam doctrine fell on fertile ground with him. He began to think about the destiny of his race.

Then came the success of Hitler in Germany.

Ben Djelloul determined to be the Hitler of Algeria; to consecrate his life to uniting the Moslem peoples and parties of Algeria and the whole of North Africa in a great new movement of insurrection and resurrection.

The young doctor toured the country preaching his gospel of unity, purity and strength to the dormant millions.

He organized, he educated, he agitated.

At first the French took no notice of him. His applications for interviews with the governor were refused.

Then, when it was too late, they woke up, without realizing that the young doctor had become a national leader, followed by millions of Algerians with the same blind devotion and veneration that the Arabs show for Mahomet.

They found he had succeeded in uniting the separate political tendencies of the Algerian political parties and welding them into a political whole.

He recruited to his army the 200,000 Algerian unemployed who had gone to France during the boom days and had been sent back by the French authorities when the crisis began in France and French laborers were finding it hard to get work.

The government contemplated arresting Ben Djelloul, but the mere threat provoked an angry mass demonstration. Thousands of his followers swarmed to his house and swore to protect their leader with their their lives.

Wherever Ben Djelloul or Ben Badin, his adjutant, go they are greeted with the upraised arm of the Hitler salute.

If the German Chancellor appears on a cinema screen in a news reel, he is loudly cheered and applauded by the natives.

The French are asking themselves whether this admiration for Hitler is merely the admiration of the Arab for a man who has persecuted the Jews, the only enemy of the Moslems.