80
FRANCE AND SIAM,
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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unlikely that such an understanding may exist; in fact, a rumour somewhat to that effect was announced by our London corres- pondent some months ago. The French Government made no protest with regard to recent events in Kelantan and Tringganu last year, though the Press of course did not pass the matter over in silence. Then, however, there was no infringement of Siamese sovereign rights by Britain; indeed, in the case of Kelantan, Siam's suzerainty was put oh a more definite footing than ever before. We notice in a more recent number of the Pall Mall Gazette an article on Great Britain in the Malay Peninsula, in which it is stated that "to the far-sighted there is but one forecast to be made as regards our policy in the Peninsula it must become 'all red.' The writer con- tinues: We must avoid giving our Gallic neighbour a pretext for further activity, while safeguarding and strengthening our own po-ition, but, nevertheless, nunexation, gr rather federation of the Siamese Protected "States with the Federated Malay States, "must come." With or without pretext, France is now wresting from Siam two provinces and part of a third, and the eating-away of Siam on the eastern continues briskly. We see frontier that the Times of Ceylon, commenting on the telegrams of the 9th iustaut, remarks:— A study of the map of Siam now and "before JULES FERRY aroused ideas of a Colonial France is significant. Absorption on the same lines twenty-five years hence would mean the extinction of Siam and "coterminous French and Indian boun- "daries." This is true, and the prospect is not one desirable for either Britain or France. But the ambitions of Indo-China and of Singapore are great, and Siam is inherently weak. It is difficult to see how the constant shrinkage of Siam's frontiers can stop while Colonial expansionists con- tinue to have weight in the councils of France and Britain.
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(Daily Press 29th January.) The telegrams, dated the 9th January, and sent through REUTER's agency to India, but not transmitted to China or the Straits, announced, one that the new treaty be tween France and Siam will assign the whole of Luang Prabang to the French sphere," and the other that, according to the Standard's Paris correspondent, "after the ratification of the new Franco-Siamese treaty, on the 15th February, Siam hands to France the territory conceded to it and a `points delegates to meet for the delimitation of the frontier between Cambodia and Siam, while France evacuates Chantaboon." It appears from this that, as indeed bad been foreshadowed, the new treaty is a re-enact- ment with slight modifications of the treaty concluded between France and Siam toward the end of 1902 but never ratified. By the former treaty Siam ceded to France the provinces of Bassak and Meluprey, on the western bank of the Mekong, together with a small piece of territory in the province of Angkor on the shores of the Great Lake. Siam was also to bind herself to seek French assistance preferentially in constructing ports, canals, or railways in the Mekong basin. In return France was to evacuate Chantaboon, which she has held since 1893, and to permit Siam to keep native troops, officered by natives, on her bank of the Mekong, which by the establishment of the neutral zone by the 1893 agreement she was not allowed to do. This treaty of" 1992 was one-sided enough, seeing that the evacuation of Chantaboon had been delayed by France on the flimsiest pretext and that the neutral zone had proved a curse alike to France and Siam by providing an asylum for desperate characters where no troops could follow them. Nevertheless the French Colonials did not consider the convention advantageous enough to their country, and therefore engineered that it should not be ratified. The hand of M. DOUMER, the well known ex-Governor of French Indo- China, was plaiuly evident herein. Bully- ing Siam had been one of his favourite pur- suits, and he returned to France determined to carry on the sport to the utmost in con- junction with the "forward" party there, M. BRAU, his successor in Indo-China, however, has not lent himself well to the schemes of the expansionists, and it was not until the end of last year that Franco- Siamese relations again reached an acute stage. The 1902 treaty then lapsed, un- ratified, and telegrams at once began to tell of hostile preparations on the Siamese frontier, while the Colonial party's journals became more violently auti-Siamese. Hap- pily the French Government is not the truculent aggressor that the Colonial party would wish it to be, and now it seems that the treaty has been patched up. France gets extra privileges, though their nature is not clear from the telegrams quoted above. The Luang Prabang men-
Hence it is that residents in tioned is apparently the name of the whole district, for the town of that name on the small islands soon sigh for the larger scope east bank of the Mekong is already French, of the mainland, or of some more extend-d like all the territory on that bank. One area. Hongkong is no exception to the Much as its residents admire its might be tempted to think that Luang | rule. Prabang is a misreading for Battambang varied beauties, they sigh for greater faci- (sometimes called Patabang), the adjoining prov.uce to Angkor, for the greater part of Battambang is in the French sphere of influence as defiued in the Anglo-French Declaration of 1896. However, it is obvious that an understanding_with_Britain must precede any extension of the French sphere, especially in the south, where an advance of boundaries means a nearer approach to Bangkok itself. It is not, of course,
.
HONGKONG'S COMMUNICATIONS ON THE MAINLAND.
(Da ly Press, 23rd January.) Oue of the great drawbacks to life in Hongkong in the opinion of hosts of its residents is the sense of confinement to a limited area. The island is small, and there is a feeling of being glued, like the limpet, to a rock, True it is that the rock is eminently beautiful, and strangers arriving here are greatly struck with its charm, and at first are apt to imagine that its beauties can never pall. Nor do they indeed to the real lover of nature. The panorama of sea aud islands, the glories of lock and foliage, of green or purple mountain-side, with the gorgeous sunsets so frequent, appeal grate- fully to the eye, and afford it a constant fenst. But however lovely may be one's surroundings, a desire for change is in herent in the human breast, and after a time it not infrequently amounts craving.
to a
lities for getting out of it on short trips. On the acquisition of the New Territory, it was hoped that the country thus placed within reach of the Colony would soon be opened up to the residents. To some extent this expectation was realised. A main road was constructed communicating with Taipo, and quicker means of reaching some o. the inland districts were secured; but no movement has been made as yet towards reudering the
[January 30, 190 4. Territory a holiday resort. The nature of the country is unfortunately of such a character that the opening up of roads is a tedious and costly work, the mountain chain bordering the coast being difficult to pierce, and the outlay required to establish an efficient system of communication out of all proportion to the revenues derivable from it.
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It was hoped, when the New Territory was acquired, that before long a railway would pass through it en route for Canton, as a concession had been granted by the Peking Government for the construction of a line from Canton to Kowloon, and such a highway could not fail to assist greatly to develop the resources of the new dependency, while it would also afford agreeable oppor- tunities to the colonists of becoming better acquainted with its configuration. But the railway is still a dream of the future, and seems likely to remain so unless the Imperial Government can be induced to authorise the Colonial Government to assist enterprise in this direction either with a subsidy or It might, of course, be by land grants. argued that such a proceeding would prove financially unsound, as a railway, say to Shamchun from Kowloou, would be almost like
road leading from nowhere to nowhere, so far as traffic is concerned; but if ever a tunnel is driven through the mountain range behind the Kowloon penin- sula, it is absolutely certain that it would not be long confined to the borders of British territory. If the British-Chinese Corporation were still afraid to embark capital in such a venture, other and more enterprising capitalists would soon come forward to carry on the railway to further points. If they could not take the line to Canton on account of the concession already granted, what, for instance, nced prevent them continuing it to Waichow? No doubt permission to make the line could be won from Peking. It is of the utmost im- portance to the trade of the Colony,
most as being
desirable to &á: well
full provide it with outlet, that
be taken of the advantage should opportunity which the possession of the hinterland of Kowloon gives to us. So far we are pretty well in the position of the man in Scripture who buried his' talent. We have been favoured with a great chance for the development of this Colony, and we have done practically nothing with it. The New Territory has neither been made a stepping-stone to secure the trade of central Kwangtung, a source of supply for the pro- vision markets of Hgkong, nor yet even a play-ground and health-resort for the citizens of Victoria. It is time that all this was altered, even at a considerable cost, and
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trust the representations that have recently been made to the British authorities. on the subject of the projected Kowloon- Canton Railway will not prove wholly fruitless.
REGISTRATION OF SERVANTS IN HONGKONG.
(Daily Press, 25th January.) The petition presented the other day by the Hon. H. E. POLLOCK, K.C., from the ladies of Hongkong, playing to the Officer Administering the Government for the com- pulsory registration of servants should, it seems, have been addressed to His Excel- lency and the members of Council. That technical mistake can be readily amended, but it is to be regretted, inasmuch as it may serve to delay consideration of a subject of the utmost importance to the British and The evils attending foreign community. the present system, or rather want of system,