The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS MORE TROUBLE IN THE EAST

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 111, 12 May 1902, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS

MORE TROUBLE IN THE EAST

For the cause that lack 3 assistance

For the wrong that needs resistance

For the future in the distance

-1 the fiood that we can do.

'Grafton-road," "Nasty Male," and "True Freedom" send further letters in pursuance of the correspondence raised by Mrs D. E. Chapman, but it has already occupied its full share of space in our columns.

MONDAY, MAY 12, 1902

It is a far cry from South Africa to Siam; but if the British people were a little more imaginative they might eiisily find reasonable ground for anxiety in the claims which France is now urging in the southeast of Asia. The news that Russia is supporting France in her demand for the cession of Luang Prabang, the buffer State between British Further India and French Tongking, is not surprising, bat it helps us to understand now complicated and unending is the task of protecting British in* terests and maintaining British ascendancy wherever they are menaced.

The history of the French connection with Siam is not, from the British standpoint, an edifying or encouraging record. A glance at the map should be sufficient to prove that the possession of Siam by a hostile or even an alien European Power might be not only a source of permanent danger to British India, Burmah and the Straits Settlements, but

a constant menace to our vast commercial interests throughout the East. Yet for the last twenty years France has been allowed to go her own way in Siam almost unhindered, encroaching upon the Siamese territory, undermining I^ritish prestige, and competing with disastrous success against British commerce. Lord Rosebery is credited with having administered to France the only serious check that she lias ever received in this quarter, but the treaty between France and England in 1896, following on the Tranco-Siamese Convention of 189:-!, involved the concession of much that England from tbe Imperialistic standpoint might well have been justified in guarding with a strong hand. Briefly, the whole of Siam is now comprised between British Burmah on the west and the Mekong River n the east, and the two Powers bound themselves not to obtain any exclusive privileges for themselves in Siam, admitting the absolute validity of. the Siamese claim to all territories within ihese limits. In spite of the definite nnd final tone of this agreement, France has never ceased in her endeavours to wrest further concessions from Siam, and the demands laid before the Siamese Government by tbe French Minister last year might well have provoked active interference on the part of England.

In the first place, France demanded, as we now 7 bear with the support of Russia, that the whole of Luang Prabang should be surrendered to her. This territory forming, as we have said, the buffer state between French and British Further India, lies on the west side of the Mekong. It has always belonged to -Siam, and was specificially described as Siamese territory in the Franco-Siamese Convention of 1893, and the AngloFrench agreement of 1896. But France claims that as half of Luang Prabang, lying east of the Mekong,!

now belongs to her, the chief of the country must be regarded as ifrdepent of Siam, and therefore Siam cannot assume protective power over him asher vassal. The Siamese Government replied that though their title to Luang Prabang was undoubtedly perfect, they might be prepared to surrender this splendid country with its thousands of square miles of forest if France would evacuate: Chentahim, aud would modify her preposterous demand for jurisdiction over the descendants of natives, who, perhaps, three centuries ago, may have lived in what is now French Cochin China. We might have expected that the desperate position of Siam would have roused Eng-land at least to some dignified assertion of her own rights In the case. If the integrity of Siam was worth tbe risk of a serious rupture with France in 1896, it is worth more now. Yet we find even the London "Times" writing with undisturbed complacency of the "negotiations" betwreen France and Siam, and treating the whole matter as if England were an absolutely disinterested spectator of a quarrel that had no meaning to her. No one who lias paid much attention to the late history of events in the Far East can doubt that this last

move 'of France lias gravely compromised England's position. France lias refused to submit the question to the Hague Tribunal for arbitration,'

and Siam has no reason t-o expect the support of England, for, astonishing as it may sound, the British

Foreign Office not long since • form-

ally recommended Siam to cultivate friendly relations with Russia! The treaty with France in which England acquiesced preserved the nominal independence of one-third of •Siam at the expense of the rest. Since 1893 the Siamese have seen the shipping trade of England in the Menam fall off at least 50 per cent., and they, hare grown accustomed t-o ■regard the ostentatious, active, and not too scrupulous French residents

as representing a power superior to all other European nations in enterprise, reputation and resource. Prestige, which counts for. so much in the '■ East, is a large factor in Siamese calculations, and there is no denying that British prestige in Siam has been almost, irreparably injured by the supineness and neglect of successive English Governments. There is still time to regain the lost ground, but that can be done only by an authoritative assertion that England is prepared to maintain the integrity of Siam, that Luang Prabang shall not be ceded to France, and that the "negotiations" which France has for her own ends kept open for several years shall now definitely close.