29th Aug. Yue Honourable George Curzon has made himself a name as a careful student of Eastern affairs, and anything concerning them which comes from his pen is well worth the attention of those who are interested in what is going on in this part of the world. He has just published in the Nineteenth Century an article on the Siamese Boundary Question, in which, even if his conclusions be not always accepted, he has at any rate put together a great deal of interesting information, The French Government officially claims the whole of the left or east bank of the Meikong, as belonging by right to Annam and so of course to France. his assertion is not only disproved by weighty Siamese evidence; but, as Mr. Curzon has no difficulty in showing, it is quite opposed to the views held until quite recently by the French themselves. It is supported neither by their missionaries, nor by the lamented Lieutenant Garnier, who had ample means for forming a judgment, nor by the maps of the War Office at Paris. Down to only a year or two ago, all the authorities, though far from agreeing among themselves, at least were unanimous in placing the frontier good deal further to the eastward, But now, however, while the Ministerial view is as we have described above, a map printed Inst year by Mr. Schrader even takes the border far over on to the right banis, and Mr. Deloncle speaking in the Chamber of Deputies declares that France has rights over the whole of Laos on both banks of the Meikong by virtue of solemn treaties and without dispute. We really think that his audience must have been rather astonished to learn this, One may take it for granted then that the French have claimed what they have no possible right to, except the right of conquest, and will undoubtedly in the future claim yet more. Remembering, however, how our own colonial empire has been built up, now that our hands are more than full, we English have no need to wrap ourselves in our virtue and look aghast at the deeds of our neighbours. It will be more profitable to consider what are their motives, what they will gain by their acts, and how we the bystanders will be affected. Mr. Curzon in one part of his article throws in an accusation of an " ill-concenled desire to embarrass and injure a hereditary foe," but he more seriously and deliberately attributes the action of the French, first, to the mere desire for territorial expansion, and secondly, in a greater degree, to their dream of tapping the fabulous commerce of Southwestern China. He thinks that they recognise the failure of the Tongking Red River route, and hope to get a better access to Yunnan by the valley of the Meikong. Mr. Curzon, on his part, wisely holds both that the trade of Yunnan has been much exaggerated, and that the unvavigable Meikong is not the channel by which it will ever flow. But we are sure that he underestimates the Red River route, and that the French do the same, if they hold the opinions which he attributes to them. It is, after the Yangtze, undeniable the best.natural road to Yunnan; and the reasons why it has not at present proved a greater success, are politically and artificially caused. Mr. Curzon, again, has no difficulty in showing that the Laos country itself offers no hopes of any appreciable trade. Even Luang Prabang, the most populous part of that territory, was declared by the Prince of Orleans after his visit to be of little worth commercially. This marvellous trade of South-western China, which so many people have believed in, or perhaps we should say, have tried to induce others to believe in, has always reminded one of the Golden City of Manoa in the old days of the Conquistadores. Let the explorer or adventurer hunt for it never so much, it is always somewhere else. So it is with the trade of Yunnan, But if the French believe in it and wish to get a bigger share of it than we can, they have a perfect right to try. It was entirely with the object of cutting out the Red River route that the scheme of a railway through Siamese territory was advocated by Messrs. Colquhoun and Holt Hallett. This ill-advised undertaking met with a good deal of sympathy from the members of Chambers of Commerce in England, though none of them showed any burning desire to invest their own capital in taking shares. If we English had not talked so much about it, very probably the French would not be so anxious to get into those parts to-day.
What, however, Mr. Curzon specially dwells on is the presence of the French in immediate contiguity to the eastern frontier of our Indian Empire. He frightens the reader with the idea of a French and Russian alliance, and a pos French army "descending the pass on to our dominions. He thinks therefore that a buffer State between their possessions and ours is absolutely necessary for our safety. No one knows much about the passes in that territory to the north of Siam. But the country certainly is not an easy one for an army to march in, especially if it be travelling east and west across the rivers and mountain ranges. The larger and more formidable the army, the greater difficulty it would have in advancing. An invasion of India or Burma from that side would certainly be a historical novelty, and we think that the idea may be dismissed. Nor are we sure how far buffer States are advisable where they can be avoided. We have one in Afghanistan; but it is only because, while we wisely refuse to let the Russians get possession of it, we recognise that to hold it ourselves would cost far too much in money, blood, and ill-will. A weak Asiatic Power, over whom one has not perfect control, and for whose acts or defaults one is in some degree responsible, is sure to be an encumprance, and a cause of embarrassment. The French too on their side might very well urge that we annexed Burma, when we might have kept her as a buffer State, and that every time that Wwe occupy aconnt-y we cannot claim by that mere act in "ddition to have neutralised the one beyond. Lastly, our neighbours might say that their Eastern empire can never by any possibility equal ours in size and strength; and therefore, if by any chance the frontiers of the two become conterminous, it will be they, not we, who have given hostages for peaceable behaviour in the future,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.