FRANCE AND CHINA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 992, 21 November 1883, Page 5

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 neighbours. Our safety and tranquility would both be threatened. We shall never agree to it unless we 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 Anam, occupy the neutral zone, we shall not a^ree to a n utral zone, and it is only after a war with you that you will keep Anam and Tonquin. The neutral zone, as marked out top )graphically, is almost all Tontjuin.. It were better to divide Anam in two— Anam on one side, and Tonquin on the other. They naturally form two provinces ; keep Anam, 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 c\n establish yourself elsewhere on the same cjnditions. You can ask us every concession in favor of freedom of trade ; we will grant them to you, not only in Tonquin, but even beyond it — even in China. You would extend the Cochin China Colony, you would open up to the trade of the world the Rsd 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 we shall not, without a fight, give up the delta of the Red River, our short practical route to the sea, to a Kingdom of Anam, which will be another name for France. Ask Europe whether she advises us to do so."