SIAM AND EUROPE.

Evening Star, Issue 11700, 4 October 1902, Page 6

SIAM AND EUROPE.

rreti Aasooatkm-By Megra^H-CopTrigat.

BANGKOK, October 3. Siam has agreed to allow British merchandise to. enter Kelanton and Trengana 01 an equality with Bangkok goods.

[Siam has shown a strong desire during the past. fey months to free herself from European influence. The Vienna correspondent of 'Tho Times,' referring,to this disposition, recently said:—" According to »n account that has reached the 'Politjscho Correspondenz" from a French source, the efforts mad© in Siam to emancipate tie country from- European influence are" daily assuming larger proportions. A3 an illustration of this tendency East Asiatic newspungrs point to ihe circumstance that numerous other European officers,. l-esidcs Captain Richelieu, who for mossy years rendered the irreatest services to the S'iameso navy, have left their posts, and have not been succeeded by other Europeans. Stress is also' laid \jpon the feet that a large piece of building ground at Bangkok baa just been ceded t-> Japan as a site for a commercial school. Indeed, Japanese influence is said to be steadily extending in all directions, and people go so far as to assert that negotiations are in progress for an alliance between Sam and Japan. (A- late cable announced that Siam had secured the Bcr vices of a Japanese procurator as legal adviser.). About three weeks ago tie same organ published a communication which likewise betrayed the dissatisfaction felt in French colonial circles at tho attitade of the Siamese authorities. It began by referring to a report that the Under-Secretary of State in the Siamese Ministry for Foreign Affairs was coming to Paris to discmra certain differences between France and Siam. It went,on to say that even before the Anglo-Japanese alliance the extension of English influence in that country was regarded unfavorably in Paris. That feeling was greatly aggravated by the conclusion of the treaty. It was further stated that the intended visit of King Chtilaloagkoni to Japan had aroused much suspicion, as it was apprehended that the two Eastern States might enter into a political alliance, in consequence of which Siam would be guided in its foreign affairs by the two allied Powers. It was understood that several Siamese Ministers,advocated an alliance with Japan, while the.relations between the two countries had developed to such an extent that the Japanese were now supplying arms and military.equipments to Siam. It is perhaps permissible to doubt whether the source of these rumors is quite above all suspicion of partiality. It. is not improbable that the authors of both communications may have been led to confound a growing distrust" of Fiench influence, which is excusable enough on the part of the Siamese, with a general decline of the influence of European ideas and institutions. . The history of modern Japanese development shows clearly that a mero reduction in the number of European officers and other teachers employed by such a State in introducing Occidental culture does not by any meana imply a renunciation of the. new system adopted from the Western nations. In Japan, at least, it was evidence of marked progress on the new lines, showing as it did that a sufficient number of native teachers.had been educated to take the place of the foreigners,, who had thus become superfluous. It is rather too much to expect Eastern States which have exerted themselves strenuously and with considerable _ success in assimilating European civilisation to submit to a permanent condition of tutelage. Moreover, it seems to be considered by those States that'to give foreigners the preference in tilling important and responsible posts a day longer than is absolutely necessary would be to deprive their own most capable.dtizeris, educated in the new schools, of the best, and indeed the only, effective training for practical purposes."] •