The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1883. Madagascar.

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 59, 20 October 1883, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1883. Madagascar.

— ♦ — : That the preselection of tim Preach tends to (Jig^ r b the peace of Kurope wa yiJ!!wnly intimated by the ad muni • i^Mra which Germany lately addressed to France. One of the most eminent Frenchmen hns recorded his conviction that his cguntrymen hare a Divine right to colonise the world. The time appears to have arrived when they are determined to pursue their mission without counting the cost, and that in several different parts of the globe afc the same moment, although the past experience of the nation has shown how utterly unfit they are as a people, to form or govern new colonies. It is possible that ingenuity may find some excuse for the action of France in other lands, but her conduct as regards Madagascar appears to be utterly unjust, ungenerous, and indefensible, and must continue to be so regarded, let the issue be what it may. When the French troops tore the flags of the Malagasy Government down last year, the ground assigned for such action was that the territory in question had been ceded to them by treaty in 1840. The first thought that arises is the length of time the claim has allowed to be dormant ; the second is how did it happen that for all these years the Queen of Madagascar, and not the French, has imposed the customs duties, which the French have paid. Moreover, no documents have been produced to sustain the cession theory, and that the treaty made between Napoleon 111 with the Queen, contained no reference to a limited prjtectorate, but acknowledged the Qut-«m as sovereign of the whole island. Ihe French have no rights whatever over the island, for the British took possession of the island in 1810, their troops occupied the military stations before held by the French, and seven years later we acknowledged the rights of the native King, with whom we concluded a treaty. Every foot of the island and every moral and political obligation were then transferred to the native sovereign, and France had neither actual nor traditional rights to cherish for one hour. No more dangerous or disturbing doctrine could be promulgated than that a nation which had lost a dependency in war, oould still preserve a traditional right to it, France has put forth a third consideration in justification of her policy. She tells us that M, Lainbertf or rather a French Company of which he was the head, received a large concession of land, fully ratified by the Government of the island: the assertion is true; but it is equally true that three years later the concession was cancelled, at a cost to the island of forty-reipht thousand pounds. This sura was paid to the company in purchase of all the claims they held und r the treaty, which was effectually annulled as if it had never been executed. And yet thin is one of the grounds upon which France now bases her claim to Mada- - ascar ! Th c following remarks made by a journal of the United States of America seem scarcely too severe : '•For the last three or four years France has been coiling about Madagascar with the object of making it a protectorate. To this end France has taken all ports of mean;; to prefer claims which h»d no foundation in fact, aud to provoke th« people to a breach of international comity, and thus give the wolf an excuse to devour the lamb." He would be unwor.hy the name of on Kn^lishman who. did not regard the present strangle with jrreat interest »nd painful anxiety.

Our own countryman, Mr Shaw, appears to bave been treated with peculiar and unnecessary cruelty, and all the proceedings were conducted with a hi^h-banded disregard of tbe of the comity of nations tbat, at more than one period in the history resented. IK matters are pushed to an extremity in Madagascar, those who best know tiie couutry and its people are convinced that the struggle will be an awful and a protracted one, ami that France will have cut herself off from the sympathy and good wishes of all the great civilised Powers of the w.rld. ■iiii-iiiiiiij innoßa__M