CO129-219 Foreign Office 1884 — Page 161

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REGE 28 MAY É

(No. 295.) My Lord,

No. 2.

Viscount Lyons to Earl Granville.-(Received May 21.)

Paris, May 19, 1884.

I HAVE the honour to transmit to your Lordship an article, published in the * Économiste Français" by M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, on the occasion of the Convention concluded at Ticn-tsin between France and China.

"D

M. P. Leroy-Beaulieu has always strongly advocated the energetic prosecution of what is termed the "colonial policy." In the present article he warmly congratulates France on having established her Protectorate over Tunis and Tonquin, and he an expedition of 7,000 or 8,000 men should be sent at once straight to Tananarive.

urges that faut procéder," he says, "à Madagascar, en ayant devant les yeux le même but, à savoir: de soumettre entièrement le pays, et d'y constituer notre Protectorat sans restriction N'acceptons aucun moyen terme : que le Protectorat complet de

aucune.

toute l'île soit notre but."

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M. Leroy-Beaulieu expresses a hope that the establishments which M. de Brazza is founding for France on the Congo will retain their pacific character, and that an annual expenditure of two or three millions (80,0001, or 120,0007.) will suffice to support the glorious champion" of France in that quarter. Taking this for granted, he thinks that France need make no more distant wars at present, but may rest in contentment as soon as the question of Madagascar is as happily solved as have been those of Tunis and Tonquin.

M. Leroy-Beaulieu is the son-in-law of the late eminent political economist and frec- trader, M. Michel Chevalier; and he himself passes for one of the principal advocates of liberal commercial principles in this country. Indeed, he affirms, in the article before us, that he is "autant que qui que ce soit en France," a partisan of liberal economical doctrines-and, indeed, that he may, without arrogance, term himself one of the champions of those doctrines.

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It may be interesting, therefore, to see what commercial policy M. Leroy-Beaulieu recommends the French Government to adopt in carrying into effect the new Convention. "China," he says, engages by the recent Treaty to open to our commerce the three great southern provinces of the Empire." "Je dis notre commerce, et nou pas le commerce international. Il ne faut pas qu'il y ait sur ce point d'équivoque.

Qui, toutes les nations profiteront de l'ouverture du Tonkin et des provinces méridionales de la Chine à la civilisation Européenne; mais quant à croire que nous ferons au commerce Anglais ou au commerce Allemand les mêmes conditions qu'au commerce Français ce serait une erreur: nous ne commettrons pas cette faute.

Nous considérons qu'il est indispensable qu'au moins pendant une première période d'installa- tion d'une douzaine d'années, le commerce Français bénéficie de droits différentiels de 10 à 15 pour cent environ."

I have, &c. (Signed) LYONS,