NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ris many weeks since we ventured to say that Lord Rose- bery had prevailed upon the Mekong because he had in- serted China between France and Britain, in Indo-China. On -Monday last the Times' correspondent in Paris reported that before the fall of the Dupuy Cabinet Lord Dufferin and M. Develle had agreed that a buffer State should be constructed, partly out of Siamese territory and partly out of British, which should be handed over to China to possess and govern. "The Chinese have agreed with great willingness to this arrangement, which relieves them from the fear of the upper 'valleys of the Mekong being made an entrance into Yunan, and it will be completed as soon as the Commissioners despatched by each Power have agreed on delimitations. A portion of the Parisian Press is furious with this announce- ment, and calls upon M. Casimir Perier to repudiate it ; but he -will be slow to cancel negotiations which leave France peaceful possession of fifty-two thousand square miles of territory, and exempt her from any dread that as Burmah absorbs and civi- lises the Shan States she may on some favourable opportunity pour down into Tonquin. The advantage of a State usually neutral, but which neither Power will attack, being inserted between two susceptible Powers like France and England, is mutual, and is not likely to miss the notice of statesmen not possessed with the notion of immediate expansion. Sir E. Grey stated on Thursday that the report about China was premature, but we fancy it will be found correct. A buffer .State without China would be a No-Man's Land.
