The French difficulty with Brazil, which is almost identical
with our own with Venezuela, seems to be becoming more acute. The Governor of French Guiana, while opening the Council General on November 18th, stated that an arbitrator had been appointed to settle the frontier line, but that it had become necessary to protect French miners in the disputed territory, and that he had called the attention of the authorities in the mother-country to the subject. It was, it is said, decided, upon this representation, to send an expedition, but since then events have advanced very rapidly. Senhor Cabral, who declares that he is the proper authority on the Brazilian frontier, but who is partly repudiated by Rio, not content with torturing those who assist the French, has ad- vanced into the disputed region and put up fortified places there. It is difficult to see how France can avoid expelling him by force, and if she expels him, a breach of the Monroe doctrine, as recently interpreted, will have been committed. President Cleveland will then be compelled either to menace France as well as Great Britain, or to recede in some marked way from his present position.
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