A wetter from ''Tientsin in a recent issue of the Courrier d' Haiphong, dated [the 29th of May last and' signed Tmpartial," gives a melancholy account of the present condition of French interests in China. Our situation, says the writer, can be characterised in a few words: " We Frenchmen are disgraced, despised, rejected: we count for nothing." "Impartial" then back to the beginning of French interests in China, the war of 1860. All the profit of this war was gained by the English, who pretended that their French allies were mercenaries in their pay, and who threw on the French all the dus of the pillage of the Summer Palace, while Baron Gros, the French plenipo-tertiary, was a mere puppet in the hands of Lord Elgin. It is currently reported that the English at that time made two treaties with China; a right-hand one which is public property and is much the same as that made by the French; and a left-hand one whi been kept.a perfect secret. tainly has.) "I don't know whether the report is true," says " Impartial," "but these are things that one does not invent, and things have undoubtedly gone on as if this treaty did exist." After mentioning M. Giquel's operations in Foochow, of which the writer says the only practical result was to make M. Lemaire French Minister at Peking, the rapid progress made by England at Hongkong and all over China is dilated on. Ihe Germans too, in 1861, without striking a blow, exacted as good a treaty as France and England had, and after 1870 they took a commanding position. 'I'hey furnish the instructors to the Chinese army, they organise the coast defences, they supply guns and—what are called—men-of-war, which will not turn over as long as they only go to sea in fine weather, dredgers, filatures, and plenty of other things of no marked utility. his is how things go with Ministers who can speak out, if necessary, who push themselves forward as the former French interpreter never has done and never can do, and who are imbued every moment with the interests of the country they represent.
On the other hand, " Impartial" continues, the position of France in China is that of Job on his dunghill; she is a mere scape-goat. Perhaps it will be said that France has obtained concessions of land at 'I'ientsin and Shanghai and elsewhere, like England, and that all Frenchmen have to do is to live on their concessions and go ahead. In the first place, owing to indifference or stupidity, the French concessions are always in the worst situations, close to the Chinese cities with their rows and their pestilential odours. "In our concessions the Chinese are at home; they live there, they get to own the land again, and what they do not absorb, is absorbed by foreigners who are not French, and only the smallest fraction rewarns in French hands. At 'I'ientsiu, for example, the whole concession has been sold for a crust of bread, 20,000 taels, and our guerdon for a long and costly war has gone into the hands of strangers who administer our concessions. We Frenchmen are no longer at home on our own ground, but are ordered about by the first comer, and have not a word to say." "Impartial" now goes on to deal with the great expectations that were formed of the results of the war with China in 1885, which were all disappointed. While M. Patendtre was negotiating at Shanghai, M. Ristelhueber, "homme néfaste de toutes les situations on il apparait,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.