The Daily News states that the business of the Cabinet
Council called on Thursday was to consider and accept a settle- ment of the Shaw incident offered by France. The French Government will pay Mr. Shaw 21,000 as compensation, and express regret that he should have been detained. If this is correct, which we do not doubt, the French Foreign Office must be considered to have behaved welL They were scarcely re- • sponaible for an Admiral in such a condition of health, the re-eaters round them were eagerly advising resistance, and they knew that the British Government was most loth to accept any new ground of quarrel. They were, however, gravely in the wrong, and in acknowledging this they showed a self- restraint more creditable than most of their recent proceedings. The compensation, though not large, is sufficient, and to have haggled would have been unworthy of the British Government, more especially as the fact of the payment will protect all Eng- lishmen in Madagascar against the irritability which seems for the moment to have mastered the French marine. The Con- sular incident at Tamatave is not settled yet, but it does not involve any claim to compensation.
