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Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2796, 14 June 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

(t'BOM OUU OWN CORItESPONDENT.) ParLs, March 15. The Dahomey little war progresses. The potting from the side of the French is severe; leas so from that of the Dahomeans. Is it a Tonkinizing or a chastizing expedition with France? She cannot bo hard up for territory to colonize, and it is certainly full time for her to commence utilizing her late grabs. Belgium, Germany and Italy will soon leave her far behind, A3 compared with England, she is of course nowhere. There are no commercial nuggets to be extracted out of Dahomey, and since Germany and England have intimated, that the annexation of Dahomey would be a Grallic wedge between the Germanic and Britannic spheres of influence in West Africa, France will likely administer a whipping and retire. She might well study tha venc-vidi-vici expeditions of England, to Coomassie and Magdala. " Africanity " is the actuality of actualities. The French are zealo'usly at work to connect South Algeria with Western Soudan. They have both a military and commercial aim in the project. The difficulty is to cross the Sahara ; this is proposed to do by a light and single line of railway, the Decauville system. Arrived at Timbuctoo, commercial relations could be opened with the tribes on the Russian seductiveness and emigration —amalgam plan. The Sahara is blocked by the wild Touaregs, who already destroyed the expedition undor Colonel Flatters. It is from the deeerfc that the fantical chief's direct all the religious movements in Algeria, for France has Mahdism in the El Senussians, just as dangerous as Egypt's suite of Mahdis. In 1871 France experienced what she might expect were she "cornered" by a long European war, and she is no more loved in Africa by the natives than any other Western power. To reach Timbuctoo France has to cope with tribal obstacles for her desert railways, as England would for a line from Souakim to Berber. Once established, the lines in both cases would do the rest. Kussia has received the first iustalmimt —70 millions of francs in gold, of the loan she negotiated here. She ought lo be convinced of the .amity of France after lint " diggin." The coiu left in three waggons for St. Petersburg, and recalled tli3 sad days, when trucks went ladcu to Barlhi, with instalments of the indemnity of Ih'u milliards. It is consoling to learn, according to the able President of the new Budget Commission, M. Jules|Roche, that France is able to face all the demands ou her purse ; only great prudence must be exorcised in expenditure, and the Treasury system of book-keeping conducted on linu3, that the humblest taxpayer who runs can read. The Australian packet, newly-built, and which has left on her first trip to Oceania, ought to be studied. She 13 the type of the to be armed merchant steamer, with which France intends to supplement the strength of her navy. Nearly all the powers are now occupied "filling bunkers" at their coal depots over the world, con comitnntly with the armament of the stations. Of course it 13 well-known, that an undefended coaling station is useless, except for the enemy that takes ic, and that on the opening of hostilities, the first cannonading: will bo at the coaling depots.