On Sunday last M. Hanotaux made an important speech on
the Colonial policy of France,—the occasion for his discourse being the unveiling of a statue of M. Jules Ferry. The President of the Senate, the Prime Minister, and several other members of the Government were also present at the ceremony. When M. Ferry took office, he found the world impelled by one and the same current towards Colonial enter- prises. A general scramble was imminent, and "the earth once again, and for the last time no doubt, was to be divided up,"—a curious remark, considering the state of Turkey and Morocco, not to speak of China and Persia. The question was whether France was to stand aside and take nothing. M. Ferry decided that she should not, but fixed upon "the Meal quadrilateral of our Colonial domain,—Tunis, Tongking, the Congo, and Madagascar." In less than fifteen years a Colonial Empire "was therein marked out." At first there was grumbling, but to-day, said M. Hanotaux, "everybody acknowledges that the place we took was just that which belonged to us." The Great Powers, too, made no grave objection. That is true ; but is it so certain that France has benefited P No doubt the Powers were in a sense glad to see France obtain a great Colonial Empire. Germany saw with pleasure France frilly occupied and her finances burdened, while England could not object to the creation of a crowd of hostages for peace. M. Hanotaux did not, of course, refer to the cost of M. Ferry's Colonial Empire. We wonder, how- ever, that some ironical rhetorician in Paris has not travestied the famous speech about Mr. Pitt's monument. M. Ferry needs no monument. An annual Colonial Budget of 150,000,000 fr. is a monument far more impressive than any work in brass or marble.' M. Hanotaux ended his speech by the declaration that France, by fixing her great Exhibition for 1900, had pledged herself to peace "for several years."
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