Indo-China, their remarks would have been
very far from ridiculous. In writing on the situation a few days ago we said France had gone too far to draw back now. The con- clusion of peace at the present moment would virtually be a drawing back, and French prestige would receive such a blow in the Far East as would tead to render her footing in Indo-China much more precarious than it was before the commencement of this wretebed Tonquin imbroglio. The bostilities between France and China have been seized upon by turbulent spirits in Cambodia and Cochiu-China to raise the standard of revolt against French domina. tion, and troops which had been sent from Saigon to Tonquin have had to be recalled for the protection of the Colony. Almost every issue of the local papers contains ac- counts of conflicts between the Government forces and the rebels, in which the latter are invariably dispersed with the loss of their baggage, but they seem immediately to re- appear elsewhere, still supplied with armsand accoutrements. They evidently possess some amount of organisation and the command of funds. If peace with China be concluded immediately after the recent reverses, not only will China hold the military strength of France in lower estimation than before, but the difficulty of holding in subjection the population of the existing French possessions will be enormously increas- ed, And should trouble again arise be- tween China and France, say a few years hence, the former would occupy a mueb stronger position than she did at the com- mencement of the war which is now supposed to be concluded, and instead of standing on the defensive would possibly throw her troops into French territory. She has now at least sixty thousand men under arms in Tonquin, and, as the French papers say, these consti- tute a force not to be despised. The Four- aier Convention provided that France should protect" the southern frontier of China, but it seems possible that she may have enough to do to protect the frontier of her own possessions against Chinese aggression, Self-preservation almost seems to demand that the French should break up the Kwangsi and Yunnan armies. Surrender will be gall and wormwood to the colonists at Saigon, who are evidently awake to the dangers of the position.
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