FRANCE AND CHINA.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3327, 30 November 1883, Page 2

FRANCE AND CHINA.

The Paris correspondent of the “ Times ” declares the following to be substantially the reply of China to the demands of France : —“We cannot agree to have you as immediate neighbors. Our safety and tranquility would both be threatened. We shall never agree to it, unless wo are forced. If you make war on us you might possibly bend us to your will, but the question is whether in case of war it would be against us alone you would make it. Therefore, if you wish it to be you, who, under the cloak of Annum, occupy the neutral zone, we shall not agree to a neutral zone, and it is only after a war with us that you will keep Annara and Tonquin. The neutral zone as marked out topographically is almost all Tonquin. It were better to divide Ann am, it on the one side and Tonquin on the other. They naturally form two provinces; keep Annam,which admirably completes Cochin China. We do not ask you to leave Hanoi or Haiphong, You are there by virtue of the treaty of 1874, as you are at Shanghai by virtue of the treaty of 1858. If you wish it you can establish yourself elsewhere on the same condition, you can ask us every concession in favor of freedom of trade; we will grunt them to you, not only in Tonquin, but even beyond it, even in China, You would extend your Cochin China colony, you would open up to the trade of the world the Red river, the Yunnan, and the banks of the river in China itself. We should disturb each other no further, and all without striking a blow. But wo shsll not without a fight give up the delta of the Rod River, our short practical route to the sea, to a kingdom of Annum,which will be another name for France. Ask Europe whether she advises us to do so."