FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
THE irritation expressed by the French journalists at the English comments on their Colonial enterprises is, on the surface, a little absurd. They seem to think that when France is in movement, Englishmen should either be silent or approve, and detect in the most straightforward criticism a sinister intent. Of course, Englishmen will criticise, and as they are not much occupied with their own affairs just now, they will criticise closely, and close criticism of the French expeditions now on hand cannot be honestly made favourable. The English, for the moment at all events, are disposed to re- gard conquest as immoral, and if ever expeditions had con- quest for object they are those despatched against Madagascar and Tonquin. As against the Malagasy, the French have simply no case at all. They say they are not allowed to hold land in Madagascar, but they are no more banished than other people, and great States do not invade to secure privileges of that sort. They are, too, obviously seeking much more than a change in internal law. They are asking a protectorate over half the island, and a dominant influence in the remain- der, and between a French Protectorate and annexation there is only this difference,—that under the former word a Com- missioner reigns much more absolutely than a Governor would dare to do. In Tonquin the pretext is a little better, for a petty war has been simmering for some years, there is a Treaty alleged to have been broken, and a French garrison has suffered a reverse, but the French Government in this instance make little concealment of their intentions. They demand in so many words the right to hold Tonquin by means of fortified places, the right to collect the whole revenue and assign it as they please, and the right to -" protect," that is, to govern through a native Prince, the whole kingdom of Anam. The English think this cynical, as it is, and being accustomed to study Asiatic expeditions, they think it foolish besides. They do not question that if France likes to use 30,000 men in the
work, she can conquer Madagascar and Tonquin ; they only say the work will be serious, and far beyond anything the French people have been led to expect. To dictate terms to the Hovas, a French General must reach the capital by marching 300 miles through a country of which 120 miles is a swampy, malarious forest, must overthrow 70,000 brave barbarians, of whom 20,000 are, for Africans, good soldiers, and must hold a line of positions not more than 30 miles apart. To do this, with full hospitals and all stores to be sent by sea, will take 15,000 men and a large expenditure ; and the Chamber will be loth to spare the money, and indignant at being asked for the troops. In Tonquin, the business will be much more serious. As we read the recent intelligence, the Anamese have found allies, and the attack on the Citadel of Hanoi, which is pro- ceeding so disastrously for the French, is being carried on by foes very different from the peoples of the Cochin-Chinese Delta. The King of Anam has enlisted the fighting Mountaineers, and has received from China a few well-armed soldiers, who will fight under his banner and in his name. That, in fact, is the characteristic policy which the Chinese have adopted. The Government of Pekin, though determined, is at once cautious and slow. So long as it can avoid that extreme measure it will not declare war on France, but will aid its vassal with troops, who are being rapidly collected in the neighbouring provinces. These troops will swarm down to Hue and Ton- quin, and fight as Anamese; and the French, when they land the inadequate reinforcements they are sending, will find them- selves opposed by some 30,000 men, well armed, fairly disci- plined, and full of confidence in their leaders. The Chinese know the country, they will be assisted by the natives, and they can live in positions in which Frenchmen would perish wholesale of disease. That they will defeat the French in pitched battles is improbable, but they will waste them, and waste them continuously, in the morasses and forests, till the French Government will find that for a serious advance an army with reserves is indispensable. It will take 15,000 men, at least, to hold Tonquin, even if China does not openly declare war ; and the moment no other course remains, China will declare war, and use her Fleet, now formidable in shallow waters. To talk of this expedition as insignificant, or to limit its cost to a quarter of a million, is trifling with the country. The French have embarked upon an expedition as serious as the invasion of Afghanistan, and are likely to reap from it just as little profit.
At the same time, while it is clear these things must be said, if the English are to speak honestly at all, there is one excuse to be made for the French journalists. They note much more carefully than Englishmen do the utterances of a few among us who criticise them not for their own sake, or for the sake of truth, but from a belief that these expeditions seriously threaten English interests. There are men among us, some of them in good positions, who are anxious that England should interfere even with menaces, who believe English interests distinctly threatened by the French expeditions, and who conjure up visions of danger to India and danger to British commerce as readily as if the French were Russians. This tone is most unwise, and should be censured by every politician of experience. Hardly anything France could do in the way of Colonial enterprise would inflict so much injury on Great Britain as a quarrel between the two nations, even if it were kept within the limit of tart despatches. We should instantly be compelled to " watch France," that is, should lose our present freedom in every quarter of the world, and be ham- pered by endless intrigue in every Eastern Court. A revolution in Paris would mean positive danger for us, and every rein- forcement sent to a French squadron would be a reason for a similar addition to our own Fleet. The expeditions on hand neither threaten us nor concern us, except so far as we regret to see France frittering away her strength in im- moral or sterile enterprises. We are not bound to prevent all wars of aggression because they are unjust, nor are the Hovas or the Tonquinese specially deserving of sympathy by reason of their civilisation or their weakness. The Hovas can fight for them- selves very well, and we venture to predict that they will not, in the end, be conquered. The Tonquinese, on the other hand, have protectors as efficient as we could be, so efficient that the French are rash in arousing their hostility for so inadequate an object. Fighting China in Indo-China, that is, on a spot where no final blow can be delivered, is fighting a great Power. The argument as to our geographical interests is almost puerile. It is said that if Fri nee held Madagascar in force, she could atop our commerce or its way to India. So she can now, much mere easily, by sending her ships into the Channel. We are not, we presume, about to recommence the old system of peace to the west and war to the east of the Cape, and if we are not, the seizure of a British vessel off the Cape would be answered in the Channel and the Mediterranean, not in Africa. France would lose Algeria, not the Sakalava country, as Lord Palmer- ston pointed out, when Count Walewski, in a moment of arrog- ance, ventured to talk of war. As to the masters of Tonquin conquering all Indo-China, and threatening India, it is worse than the talk about Russia in Afghanistan. It will take the French half a century to build up an effective Power in Indo- China, and when they have done it, the new " Empire" would be absolutely at the mercy of Great Britain, which by a few words at Pekin could press the dependency from both sides. The Deputy for Cochin China may gasconade about French destiny in Asia, but it will be time enough to fidget when the French threaten Siam, which, with a few decent officers, could make a stout defence ; and even if Bangkok were French, India would not be endangered. To attack her by sea would be difficult enough, but to attack her in British Burmah by land, through that wilderness of jungle and swamp and mountain, all infested with miasma, is an enterprise from which the wildest of French Generals would shrink. To read some of the letters written and speeches made, one would think that the whole course of French history in Asia, and indeed in all the colonial enterprises of France, had been forgotten. That history has been almost unbroken. France has every now and then commenced a great enterprise, has achieved a first success, has met unexpected difficulties, and has abandoned openly or secretly its further prosecution, throw- ing over her agents with reckless ingratitude as persons who have failed. To quarrel with France because she may at some future time secure a great dependency in Indo-China which, at a farther future time, may be used against India, is like quarrelling with a child because he may when a mart propagate effectively dangerous ideas. Prophetic statesman- ship of that kind always fails, and it is only to the prophetic eye that this expedition to Tonquin can appear dangerous. Of course, if France quarrels with China and tries to blockade her ports, England would be injured, though not half so much as she was injured by the blockade of the Southern States ; but the blockade will injure all Europe, and can be dealt with by all Europe, when the time arrives. Meanwhile, the true position for English politicians is to regret the action of France, chiefly because it is bad for the world that France should lose more influence in Europe by frittering away her strength on expeditions almost certain to prove sterile. If M. Challemel-Lacour thinks the annoyance of the English in itself a sign of hostility, what does he think of the delight of the Berliners ? They are not angry because France is going to invade Tonquin, and probably quarrel with Pekin, but quite rejoiced, seeing clearly enough that every soldier and every pound expended east of Suez is just now a loss to France.
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