5th Jan.
TxE Reuter's telegram to the effect that "the Times strongly protests against the dog-in-the-manger policy of the French in Shanghai, and states that we do not intend to submit to such treatment" indicates, of course, that the leading journal has been seriously discussing our Settlement article in the Times, notwithstanding Extension perploxitie; and a leading the much larger circulation of some of the cheaper London dailies, has a very important effect on public opinion at home, while it often turns that opinion in the direction that the Government wishes it to take, the Times being often really, though not nominally, almost an official in. It is to be feared that in this instance the Times has given to our perplexities a ter importance than they merit. Logically, no doubt, the grant to France of an extension of her Settlement at Shanghai, if the extension is claimed as French territory, would be an interference with our claim to keep the whole Yangtze Valley as within our sphere of i fluence; but it is not the British habit to carry things to their logical conclusion, but rather to juds them by their practical effect. We do not allow the French claim, if it is made, that the present French Settlement and any extension of it, are any more French territory, than the so-called British Settlement is British, or the American Settlement American territory. The disadvantages have been so practically unim-
21,600.00)
10,800.00)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.