M. JULES FERRY IN THE FAR EAST.
MJULES FERRY is acting with greet resolution, not • to say doggedness, in the Far East,- and his operations are attaining a magnitude which deserves English attention. Confiding in the indisposition of the Chamber to displace him, the French Premier- has ventured fo spend money without previous sanction, and to increase his forces in Tonquin until General Minot commands a French Army of 25,000 men,— sufficient, according to the calculations usual in Asiatic con- quests, for any enterprise short of a conquering march to Pekin. With this force, the details of which are given by English correspondents, and which is supported by a strong steam flotilla on the rivers, General Millot has done nearly all the work entrusted to him, taking both •Bacninh and Hunghoa with exceedingly little loss. As Hanoi, Haidzuong, and Sontay were already in his hands, he is now therefore master of all the fortresses in the whole Delta of the Songkoi, and from the extreme south of Cochin China to the frontier of China there is no force to resist the French in the field. The whole "Empire of Anam," with its dependency Tonquin—a tropical kingdom in all 900 miles by 150, full of fertile plains, broad forests and, it is said, minerals—lies at the mercy of the French, and a new treaty is about to be signed at Hue, acknowledging them as sole "Protectors " — that is, rulers—over the whole, with full Tights of taxation and administration. As yet, of course, order is not secured ; bands of men, half-patriots, half-brigands, scouring the country up to the very gates of the fortresses ; but the armed steamers cut the bands off from each other, the French severity pro- duces external submission among the common people—whom • General Minot protects,—and the Black Flags are retreating to the mountains looking to China for aid. If China does not interfere and M. Ferry can persuade the Chamber to leave
General army in Indo-China, and a revenue can be drawn from the Customs and some monopolies, France will speedily be in possession of a large and possibly rich dependency, from which she will exercise a new influence both on Siam and China.
M. Jules Ferry has, therefore, so far succeeded ; but will not
China at last intervene, and compel a great war M. Jules ,
Ferry thinks not; and events have shown him so far right, that he has a title to be heard. He argued from the first that the threats of the Marquis Tseng were diplomatic devices only, that the Chinese Government would not declare formal war, and that its informal resistance would collapse when its troops felt the French shells. So far his argument has proved cor- rect. The Chinese Government, in spite of the explicit state- ment of the Marquis Tseng, did not treat the capture of Bacninh as a declaration of war ; and though they sent Regu- lars to defend that fortress, their Regulars ran away. It was at first believed that the retreat was the consequence of orders from Pekin, but this has proved not to be the case. The fall of the fortress has produced consternation in the Palace, and the Dowager Empress, supported by the war, party and the Tartar chiefs, has ordered the officers in command at Bacninh to . be beheaded ; has dismissed Prince Bung, the head of the peace party, from office ; has degraded Li-Hung Chang, the Great Viceroy of Canton, and the most influential man of Chinese birth in the Empire, for mismanaging his part in negotiations ; has recalled the Viceroy of Yunnan, who organised the Black Flags, to the capital—a preliminary to a sentence of death—and has placed Prince Chun, the father of 'the boy-Emperor, and the representative alike of the War Party and of the Tartar interest as opposed to the Chinese interest, in a post of supreme control equivalent to a Regency. He is for the time to be the final referee from all Departments, and to speak with the Emperor's authority. Orders are also reported for a general levy of militia, and rumours are circulated of the recall both of the Marquis Tseng, and of his colleague, the Ambassador who lives at Berlin, and is often so cleverly indiscreet with interviewers. All this should end in' war, but then it all indicates great perturbation in Pekin, where the Government is hampered by difficulties little noticed in Europe. In the first place, it detests open war, because defeat in such a war not only means emeutes in the Provinces, where the Mandarins are hated, and where certain classes seize any opportunity of disorder, but may mean insurrection against the dynasty, which, it must not be forgotten, is not Chinese, and has never quite conciliated the body of the people. In the second place, if the Chinese Regulars will not face the Europeans, as seems probable from recent events, the Court of Pekin has no force to use, unless it calls out its reserve strength, the Tartar tribes of the Steppe, as it did just before it sub- mitted to Lord Elgin. These tribes are faithful, and will fight bravely ; but the Court hates to be in their hands, they cannot be sent to the Southern Deltas, where they would die like Europeans of the climate and the change of food, and they are required to protect Pekin in the event of insurrection.. The Court, therefore, will probably hesitate, and endeavour to make the war informal, providing the mountaineers of Tonquin with arms, and inciting them to perpetual incursions into the Delta, with the object at once of wearing the French out, and rendering their new possession valueless. It would be next to impossible to produce order while; such incursions continued, and quite impossible either to withdraw the considerable army now in Anam, or to provide for it from the reiources of the kingdom itself.
This policy, therefore, is greatly feared, both in Tonquin and Paris. In Tonquin, the able correspondent of the Times, who traversed Southern China, and has as savant found favour with General Millet, declares that the officers are talking of the necessity of an expedition to Pekin ; while in Paris, M. Jules Ferry has acknowledged that he has demanded a heavy indemnity from the Chinese Government for employing its troops in the defence of Tonquin, which M. Ferry contends is an insurgent province of Anam. In other words, M. Ferry, with the audacity which has characterised much of his recent action, has taken the bull by the horns, and has compelled the Chinese Government to choose whether it will declare war, or will submit to such terms as the French Ministry may dictate. Informal war will not do, for Amoy and Hainan would be seized, and then the situation would be visible to all Chinamen, and the dynasty would be endangered. Prince Chun is shut up to the simple decision, War or Peace ; and in spite of his known character, and the pride of the Empire, he may not choose war. Any other Government in the world would fight at once ; but the Government of China for a century past has yielded to resolute European attack, and has evidently not improved its disposable Army to the degree supposed. The men did not fight even behind works, and though it has more men and better men elsewhere, the difficulty of bringing them
to the spot over the vast spaces of the Empire in sufficient time seema almost insuperable. The indemnity, we should say, would not be paid, though China, having been faithful in discharge of her obligations to her bondholders, could raise a moderate sum in London, without the notice of. the masses ; but we do not feel equally sure that Anam may not be ceded. It. is a long way from Pekin, the mountain region can be left as a barrier between the two States, and the cession could be made in forms which would not seem to the people to involve total defeat. The Chinese statesmen, in the present condition of Europe, can hardly find European allies ; and when driven, as M. Ferry is driving them, to a direct and open choice, may see in the circumstances of their cumbrous Empire, with its two parties and two races watching each other, reason for giving way. That is evidently M. Ferry's reliance, and after-the success he has attained it is impossible to feel confident that he. is wrong. He is running a tremendous risk ; for, if he is wrong, he must march to Pekin, or hold Tonquin by an interminable war. But in Asia, audacity often succeeds, the strongest organisations turning out, when fiercely struck, to have no true cohesion.
We shall regret M. Ferry's success, though we do not want to see China engage in a war which might produce anarchy among a fourth of the human race. Bad as her Government is, her people choose it, they cannot replace it, and almost anything is better than the horrors of anarchy in those vast and secluded provinces, with their millions of thickly-planted people. But success will inflame the worst characteristic of the French, their contempt for any rights which in- terfere with their own. If the Republic is to go ranging about the world, snatching here a province and there an island which, when they are snatched, it treats as mere estates to be exploite's, or as M. Ferry said, to "provide posts for the sons of worthy citizens," it will become as great an object of suspicion as the •Empire, and will, in the end, render European war inevitable. M. Ferry says he is only zealous to protect "the rights of France," but we all know the kind of man who says he wants nothing but what is his, but that he will have. He is always the most perverse and obstinate of litigants, a nuisance to his neighbours and a burden to the Courts. France is displaying too much of that temper, and though. we do not deny that she had a grievance in Anam, where the wrongs of the native Christians have moved the Catholic Church out of its usual neutrality, still, the Government of France is not exactly Christian, and is pushing its pecuniary claims everywhere with a cynical dis- regard of everything but profit, which must demoralise its policy.
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