Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1893. THE FRENCH IN SIAM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3034, 25 July 1893, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1893. THE FRENCH IN SIAM.

Upon the settlement of the trouble m Siam that has arisen between the authorities of thttt country and the French, the peace of Europe may depend, for m that quiet .Asiatic country and among its inoffensive people lie interests of moment to more than one great Continental nation. To all the manufacturing countries Siam is more or less a desirable market, but more especially for products of the loom, and to Great Britain and the United States she has been for many years a good customer for cotton goods and to France for silk manufactures, while of the raw product of the silkworm she is an abundant producer. The area of the kingdom of Siam is about 200,000 square miles, and her population is about six millions, largely leavened with Chinese. Bangkok, the capital of the country, is about twenty or thirty miles inland, situate on both sidM of the liver Meinam, and some i idea of the climate may be formed when its latitude is given as 13.40 N. and longitude 101.10 E. The Meinam empties itself into the Gulf of Siam, and although its bar is shallow—l 4£ feet at its highest—the river otherwise is as safe and comfortable for navigation 9S any m the world, and the depth at Bangkok is about nine fathoms. One writer says the channel of the river is so equal that a ship may range from one side to the other, approaching the banks so closely that her yards may literally overhang them. The city of Bangkok extends along the banks of the Meinam on both sides for two or three miles, and on the left bank there are many floating houses and warehouses. Many tributary streams flow into the Meinam, and thus mostly all the intercourse with Bangkok is by water. From the above rough description it will be seen that once across the bar and past the antiquated forts which | defend the mouth of the river the French gunboats would have what sporting men would call a "soft thing on " m a river like the Meinam, and it is very easy to conceive that the citizens of Bangkok, not at all a warlike people, would be only too happy to come to the very exacting terms diotated by the French, which we published m a recent cablegram, rather than have such dangerous enemies m the narrow river that intersects their city. From the cablegrams that have reached us it is difficult to glean any reasonable excuse for the French attack upon Siam ; and the announcament at the end of last week that hostilities had been suspended, we fancy could be easily feund a cause for, m the very strong public indignation which the attack upon Siam provoked m England. But if there be an absence of justification for the attack, there is motive for it easily found, Over the adjacent country of Annam, or Cochin China, the French exercise a protectorate, and France has long cast covetous eyes on the fertile plains and downs lying eastward of the Mekhong river. This large tract of fertile country is & very valuable possession, but it has hitherto been a Siamese possession, the boundary that marked the division between Annam and Siam being a ■ range of mountains lying nearer Annam. This range has long been accepted as the frontier line by everyone except the French, and while the Siamese were loth to be dispossessed altogether, they were prepared to sacrifice their right to a strip of the flat land about thirty miles wide by three hundred or thereby mile* long. This strip, however, they stipulated should be neutral, but the rapacious representative of La B«lle France m power ajb Annam would be satisfied with nothing less than the whole. Siam declined, and trouble, easily raised, very soon followed. In 1860 Sir John Bowring effected a satisfactory treaty of amity and commerce with Siam, and ever since Great Britain and the eastern kingdom have been on the most friendly relations, and Siara's commerce bas been valuable to Great Britain. The latter power cannot ve»y well afford to stand by with arms folded and see France easily accede to power m Siam as the result of this quarrel, and we do not fancy she will. If she did she would surrender a market for the sale of her own manufactures and the purchase of commodities useful to her people which she cannot m these times well afford to hand over to French control. Besides the present is a critical time m diplomatic circles at Home, and while France holds Annam, next door to Siam, and Siam is next door to our Indian possessions on the east; and Russia seeks to extend her frontier by way of Afghanistan to British India on the west, Great Britain must keep her eye on the integrity of her kfnajj? little neighbour on the Gulf of Siam, otherwise the sacrifice of the integrity of that neighbor's kingdom to French rapacity may haye th# serious effect of imperilling the integrity of h«r own empire m India,