There are two points in the Siamese trouble as to
which, as yet, no information is forthcoming. One is the popular feel- tug. in France as to the expediency of war. It is not easy to believe that the people who cannot forgive the acquisition of 'Tonquin are anxious for a vast extension of that province, but it is alleged that they think the extension may be made to Pay, the Mekong opening a road into the interior of Yunnan and all Western China. We should doubt if the route is cheap enough to vie with the route by the Irrawaddy, but nevertheless this may be believed in Paris. The other ques- tion s what the Chinese think about it all. Siam is crowded with Chinese, and the statesmen of Pekin may think that a river-road from Tonquin into Yunnan is much too clear a breach in the defences of the secluded land. At present, they are defended on the Tonquin side by a range of hills, which the French have never been able to overpass. An -energetic remonstrance from Pekin would materially affect opinion in France, where the electors have no idea, either of aggrandising Tonquin, or establishing a raw on the British, at the price of a war with China. We should say ourselves that the Chinese would remain tranquil, confident in their power, if necessary, 'to block the Mekong; but the precise relation of China to her old feudatories is one of the unexplained arcana of that Empire. We rather think we are paying some sort of " tribute " for Burmah, where there are no Chinese; and Siam is so full of them, that she may almost be called a Chinese colony. They do most of the trade and much of the agriculture ; and though the Siamese keep them in order by periodic seventies, they are strong enough to be exceedingly troublesome, and to excite great interest in Pekin, which never forgets anything or pardons anybody, or allows itself for one instant to be hurried out of its serene calm.
