Bast, (By arrangement with the writer.)
The first explorers of Tongking saw in the Red River, which crosses it from fron-therefore I will not waste my words in telling, what "Vadministration" denies. 'They should take for their motto Mephistapholes' words to Faust, Iam the spirit j lieve that a majority of the French in tier to sea, the great highway to and from Tongking, if a secret ballot could be the vast and wealthy provinces of Southern taken, would vote to-day, in spite of their! China. This was the dream for which undying love of country, to hand over Francis Garnier and the rest of the brave that denies." Whatever you want, though Indo-China to England. "Then they could it cost the Government not a penny, though buy and sell, manufacture and import, it be a boon to the community, though it create and develop, with no man to hamper be the opening-up of the country so enthu-them and no ' Administration" to forbid. siastically toasted, the authorities are abso-But the shadows of the picture are not lutely certain to refuse your request. This yet complete. First, as to the Chinese. is no joke—if you think so, stop the first Nobody dislikes the Chinese more than I man, not a functionary," you meet in do, and nobody can advocate more strongly the: street in Haiphong and ask him, It than I the absolute necessity of keeping is almost as easy to get into Parliament in! them out of a civilised settled country. But London as to get a concession of land: it is as plain as the nose on one's face that for any purpose whatever in Tongking, no colony in the Far East can dispense although the whole vast country is on with them, Their labour, their easy and public offer, although the land almost willing adaptability to any job by which throws its crops and its minerals in your money can be earned, from nursing the face, and although the inhabitants are baby to driving the steam-engine, their "pirates" by thousands simply and solely commercial insight and reliability, these for want of the employment and sustenance, make them an ideal substratum for'a new which welcomed capital and encouraged community.
Yet Tongking taxes them till enterprise alone can furnish. If the govern- they are giving up their established busiment of Tongking were administering a nesses, and puts a price on the head of each hostile province which it desired to crush as he comes and again as he goes. out of existence, it could not do much bet- Second, the port charges. "Take the little ter than follow its tactics of to-day, And steamer I returned in, the Freyr, 676 when it does toovoften? Take the © Magasins Généranx'
ive pi es, what are they, tons, from Randers in' Jutland. At the ort' of Neweastle she has paid £4; at at Haiphong, " monopoly of Custom-house Nagasaki $70; at Yokohama $50; at examination granted in the warehouses and Hongkong $4; while to get in and' out on the wharves of one firm, to whom and of the port of Haiphong costs her every whose terms everybody must come. In vain trip $302.40. And this, too, is only the the whole community protested and pro- ship's charges pure and simple.—The tested. The monopoly was granted, and the charterer must pay a dollar and a half Chambers of Commerce of both Haiphong wharfage for every ton of cargo landed and Hanoi immediately and unanimously—say $750 for an average cargo. Thus resigned, and the Chinese merchants have at a port where common sense would sent in v declaration that unless this addi- tell that trade should be tempted and tional restriction is removed they will leave nursed in every possible way, they begin by in a body. And a single example—my, making trade all but impossible. There materials in all these instances are supera- can hardly be a more needy port in the abundant, it is only space that limits me to world than Haiphong, yet it is doubtful if a single one—will show the practical evil there is a more expensive one. The con-of this monopoly. The storage of coal per sequences are obvious. A year and a half ton per month costs (for, comparison Tem ago there were six steamers plying from Jloy French currency) at Hongkong (Kow- Hongkong; to-day there are three. loon Godowns), 20 centimes; at Shanghai—Last of all, comes the enormous Customs Glardine, Matheson & Ca.), 28 centimes; at ' duties of the ridiculous "Tarif general." The last resolution of the Chambers of protection a good trial. What is the posi-Haiphong (Maynsins Généraus) 4 franes These nood no specifying, Saigon has given Commerce is truly pathetic. The Govern- tion of Saigon now? A critical, if not a hopement consulted us, they say, and then took less one. And she has discovered that only no notice whatever of all that we said. It, one thing can save her. The unanimous reig therefore useless to maintain an institu port of the Chamber of Commerce, published tion whose powers are purely illusory, in August last, concludes with these words i Please let us go. big type: We demand the absolute aboli-So much for the colonist and the Gov- tion of the Customs regime in Cochin-China ernment impersonal. What is his attitude from January Ist, 1889."
France has towards the personal Governor-General gained nothing (figures show this indisput-He sees him come, he watches him while bly) and will gain nothing by her "Tarif he is learning the a'b c of Tongking affairs, general," while she will lose her colonies he reads a few official decrees, he hears a through it by and by. Yet is there the few official after-dinner speeches, eulogising faintest shadow of a coming change? Quite France, Tongking, the Governor-General the contrary. In one of the last public and the colonist himself, and then some; Speeches he made, at a banquet in Hanoi, day a telegram comes and the colonial sees M. Richaud exclaimed, ounce the him go. The heads of the colonial Govern- chimerical hope of the return of absolute ment succeed each other in Saigon and; Commercial liberty The subsidised news-Hanoi like the figures of a shadow panto- Paper adds that this was followed by a mime: the long procession has not halted; '{riple salve "U'applandissements." I" do for twenty years, "M. "Richaud boasted Mat believe it. Or if it is true, then the to me with a laugh that he.was tolerated Colonists of Hanoi should be refused Chris-longer than any of his predecessors. His, tian burial, for they are suicides. term of office was thirteen months! Before Sufficient for the Tongking of to-day is the Governor-General comes, he is un-_ the evil thereof. known; while in the East even his public Hesry Norway. speeches are addressed to Paris; he returns and is forgotten. It is the merest farce of 10 THE DEAF.—A Person cured of supervision, and what wonder that the Deafness and noises in the head of colonist sinks deeper year by year in dis-23 years' standing by a simple remedy, will gust and despair. He has described him-send a description of it raze to any Poreon self in a bitter epigram: lo colon est wu who applies to Nicuoisos, 21, Bedford pritexte & banquets." Instability is the Square, London, W.C., England. band of Frenchmen schemed and fought and died. To-day it is known to have been indeed the baseless fabric of a vision." The Red River has been explored to the Chinese frontier and found to be unsuited to serious navigation for the greater part of its length, to both shallow and full of rapids. The future of Tongking, therefore, if it has one, must lie in another direction than that which inspired its conquest. But has it a future—this 200,000 square miles of varied country, which has cost France 36,000 men and unknown millions of francs, will it some day give back these lives and this treasure a hundredfold, or is it destined tod "e on in misgovernment and amid political rancours for a few years, till evacuation closes the shameful chapter That depends. But for my own part I do not see how anybody who has had opportunities of closely observing Tongking in different parts can doubt the possibility of future perhaps even beyond that Which Garnier dreamed.
To begin with, the most striking superficial feature of Tongking is its fertility. Wherever T have seen it, the land has bosh green with trees and "in verdure clad" or covered with luxuriant crops. The enormous delta of the Red River is or may be a vast rice-field, but after the splendid crops of last year nobody doubts this. Before many years the chief rice-supply of the Far East may come from Tongking, And countless other parts of the country, all the travellers have told us, show moist low-Lying land equally suited for rice cultivation. Already experiments have shown that wheat, will grow admirably on the dry uplands. Its grain is smaller and browner and much heavier than in Europe, the cost of eultivation is not more, while the selling price is at present fifty per cent higher. Oleaginous grain is already grown in considerable quantity by the natives, who extract the oil by a curious process of their own. A large concession of Innd has just been taken to be planted with sugar-cane, and there is no doubt that many other agricultural ducts need only intelligent introduction.
Again, consider the question of opening up Southern China, Garnier's hopes of the Red River route were baseless, but what the river has failed to do the railway may easily accomplish. An_ interesting scheme to effect this is at the present moment struggling against the vacillation of the authorities. It is the plan of the Marquis de Mores, who has gone over the ground himself with French engineers, and certainly on paper it is an attractive one. His idea is to supersede half the caravan route between Canton and Yunnan and Tibet. At present the cost of transport mile—I am quoting the details he gave me is from three to four shillings per ton per himself—and the time occupied in transit is from Canton to Nanning 30 days, and from Pakhoi to Nanning 18 days. At present from Yunnan and Tibet only opium comes back in exchange for piece-goods. It has been well known for years that Yunnan is extremely rich in minerals, iron, silver, lead, tin, zine, ete., but none of these can afford' the cost of caravan transport. M. de Mores claims that he can reduce the four shillings to three pence and the thirty days to fifteen hours, The railway, of metre gauge, is planned to start from a place called Tien-An, (you will not find it on the map) some distance on the coast
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.