CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918 — Page 292

HTT

288

French Consul being merely an agent of the Tonkin Government; and the French residents nearly all of whom have spent some years in Indo-China, treat the Chinese in the same way as they have been accustomed and permitted to treat the Annamites.

Article XIX nineteen of the French Treaty of 1886 pro- vides that the treaty shall be promulgated in Annam within a year from the date of ratification, but this has never been done although the Yönkin Authorities enforce the "reaty when it suits them; and my raising the question of the transit dues payable by the British American Tobacco Company's Shanghai-made cigar- ettes left the French Government no option but to put in force article twelve of the treaty; but this is all they have done. And this is not enough. Moreover, if Yunnan, in the future, is not to become a second Serbia it is essential both in justice to China and in the interests of other nations, that, in the re- mapping of the world after the war when the question of "economic rights of way" for weak nations is considered, this province should be guaranteed free access to the sea: i.e. complete free- dom for goods in transit, such freedom to comprise freedom from duties and from hostile discrimination by administrative measures in the shape of manipulation of railway freights.

At present the Trench, to put it mildly, do nothing to assist in the development of the resources of Yuman: it would hardly be too much to say that they actively oppose it until such time and in such measures as they themselves are prepared to under- take it. The obvious fact that a big Yunnan trade would materially benefit both the colony and the railway has no weight against their dog-in-the-manager policy: Yunnan is a "province d'influence fran- caise" and is to be reserved, as far as possible, solely for French exploitation. The Ko Chiu Railway Company recently asked the French Railway Authorities for a special tariff for their rail and rolling stock which are expected to arrive shortly; any reduction in freight was refused: the rails are coming from

Hanyang/