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Pahiatua Herald, Volume II, Issue 227, 14 November 1894, Page 2

The reply of the Hovas to the French ultimatum is emphatic enough to satisfy the most exacting of people, still less the French who merely require the smallest loophole to begin their hostilities. The Hovas will not submit to the domination of France until compelled to do so, and to enforce the obedience of the Malagasy people the French will have sufficient to keep her troops busy for many a month to come. At best the French claims on Madagascar are shadowy in the extreme, but what there is of them dates back to 1012, when Cardinal Richelieu, seeing the commanding position Madagascar was likely to afford in the future, estab- j lishrd the French East Indian Com- I panv, which obtained a footing on the south-east coast, but through mismanagement this and other companies which succeeded it collapsed. In 1865, Mr McLeod, the historian, in summing up France’s efforts at colonising Madagascar, said: “Treachery on the part j of tho French be got the undying hate ! which the Madagascar people bear them j to this day ; and dearly has France paid i in her own blood for the negroes re- , duced to slavery by the infamous conI <lucfc of Prouis.” In 1810 the English drove the French out of Madagascar, 1 and by the capitulation of Mauritius i and Bourbon, whatever rights France ! held in Madagascar passed over to | Great Britian, but Bourbon was restored to France by the treaty of peace, which followed the Battle of Waterloo, and the French claim that their rigbis jto Madagascar went with it. In IBK.q, | th? French, based on fiction a > asu* ! hrlli, and declared war on the Hovas. ' After two years, desultory fighting tha j Hovas were exhausted. Franco - j torted a largo sum as a war indemnity ' and seized the Tamatave Customs reipts as trity for

tainod the cr; -ion of a small amount of ■ • French claim a protectorate over tho l whole of Madagascar, but the Hovas ; have never acknowledged having signed away the rights of sovereignty, and the text of the trecty is in their favour. The present attitude of the Hovas is therefore thoroughly consistent, and as we have already stated, France will find it a very difficult matter to assert her rights by force of arms. French supremacy in Madagascar would be a serious matter for Great Britain, for two-thirds of her commerce and nearly the whole seaborne trade of tho Australian Colonies would bo at the mercy of France in time of war. That the British Government is keenly alive to the seriousness of the position, is manifest by the recent utterances of Lord Rosebery at Sheffield. So long as France keeps within reasonable limits she will be allowed a free hand in Madagascar. We can safely allow the matter to rest there, as the French are not likely to secure Madagascar ; on the contrary, the hostilities now about to begin, will end in disaster, and greatly weaken whatever little prestige the French may now have in that place.