'Tue political writer 'One Who Knows' contributes his second article this week to the Pall Mall Budget on The Mischief of the Tonkin Capitulation." The paper is too long to summarise satisfactorily, and the arguments of the author are, we judge, not yet completed. But there are one or two points which he brings out with atriking force, and these we must refer to prominently. Speaking of the clause in the Preliminary Convention which provides that France shall engage to " respect and protect" the souther frontiers of China, the writer explains "To protect 1" We have seen what a vista of grand potentialities these words open out to the sinbitions Western pro-Couaul in the East, There they are, however, in treat; intended to bring to an and x sories of culties caused by the same little words in Stupid, feru frontier of China ie in no one but the French them-indeed, from " Power which and, #0 to eps passed 0 body into China, in, whi then alo could not protect herself, Moul Po a handy. "4 pruteut because it la an insult to any great nation to offer to protect hor frontiers, Li probably wanted to have order kept among the frantic waurauders, and thoughtlessly permi-ted th unhappy and ominous phrase to be employed, This is well put, and is ably capped by the paragraph which succeeds, and which contains a very important point hitherto over-louked, we believe, by publicists both ut home and hei But a atill more that guarded and dangerous on ad the conclude a treaty regal 7 Aunam, and, in Tiew of an i 108 to give liberal Up to that time China never recognized the French claim toan indewmuity; sh dit with scorn, She claimed to ked layman whom be did by a has granted the pri lodged the right of ge ial treaty. If what Lo offers is not regarded as satisfactory, li gee the screw of the indemnity put M. Emile de Laveleye continues his series of articles on 'A Great People under Bad Laws,' dealing in the present instalment with the laws on land, the immense cost of legal action—which he justly' stigunatises as a plague"—local government, and church patronage. It would have been better perhaps if this accomplished critic
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.