Every day confirms our impression that, if the Chamber is
con- sulted, the French Government will be ordered to make peace with China. The electors absolutely dread the notion of such a war, to which also, it is said, the Army is opposed. The soldiers fear the hospitals, and already letters are coming home show- ing that sickness has broken out among the troops in Hanoi. It must not, however, be forgotten that the explosives are accumu- lating, and that accident may fire the train. The Cantonese mob, for instance, the most dangerous in the empire, on September 10th attacked the foreign settlement and burned a number of houses, cutting the telegraph-wires to prevent the facts getting abroad. Their provocation was the accidental death of a tont, who was roughly pushed off the quay by a European, and was drowned, and their animosity was not specially directed against France. Still, China- men usually do not care who dies, and the Chinese Govern- ment was evidently alarmed, for, contrary to its usual policy, it at once despatched troops against the rioters, with orders which at once restored quiet. Moreover, the European residents, who, though liable to panic, know the people, at once fled on board the steamers in the harbour. An emeute in Shanghai might at any moment draw down fire from the commanders of French vessels, who would not be sorry to see their Government committed to action. The local feeling among the French in Anam is that they ought to have been reinforced long since, and that the Republic is discrediting the French name. The true hope of peace is in the Chamber.
