Order First

One week after Sultan Mohammed V returned to Morocco's throne, it was still an open question whether he or anyone else would be able to keep order in Morocco's restive land. The Sultan could not trust some 400 pashas and caids (local administrators) who had endorsed his banishment by the French. They, in turn, fearing reprisals from the Sultan's friends, dared not assert their authority or exact their usual tithes from restless Berber tribes. The new French Resident General, Andre Louis Dubois, had turned over much of the police power to Moroccans, concentrating his 100,000 troops in the openly rebellious regions of the North. Neither 20,000 Moroccan militiamen nor the private guard forces of nationalist political parties were enough to keep order. One week's incidents in Morocco: P: Terrorists in the Riff mountains ambushed a French ambulance convoy, killed 19 soldiers and wounded 8.

Confronted with such turbulence, the Sultan sought to set up his country's first representative government. He did not entirely trust the country's largest party, the Istiqlal (Independence) Party, whose leaders are united in hostility but undecided which prophet to follow, Marx or Mohammed. As first Premier, the Sultan chose a man identified with no party, but admired by most nationalists. He is Si M'Barek ben Mustapha el Bekkai, 48, onetime Pasha of Sefrou, who served as Mohammed V's representative in Paris during the Sultan's exile. Si Bekkai is a retired lieutenant colonel of French cavalry, lost his right leg in the Ardennes Forest during World War II. The Sultan, with Si Bekkai's help, hopes to hold back impetuous nationalists, and means to rule. Said he: "When the government is responsible to a duly elected body, it will be different . . . Before that, any limitation of my powers . . . would only result in anomaly and confusion."

Next door to Morocco, Algerian troublemakers, not to be outdone, persisted in shooting up the place. In Algiers an assassin fired three shots from his bicycle, disappeared leaving a police commissioner dead on the pavement. In Constantine, a rebel stamping ground in eastern Algeria, French troops battled guerrilla bandits, captured 77. Later, a French troop detachment and then an army supply truck were ambushed. The week's dead: 41.

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