Our Paris Letter

Manawatu Herald, 21 March 1896, Page 3

Our Paris Letter

Paris, 81st January, 1896. The Mekong river now forms the* boundary between British and! Freuch possession's in Indo China jl the idea of a buffer State being abandoned. The despatches exchanged between Lord Salisbury afldl M. de Courcel, the French Ambassador in London, mark out a frontier, which makes out ample concessions to France. But, strange to say, neither the French nor the British press are satisfied with these concessions. The British press says that too much is conceded to France, and the Freuflh press too little, and both disapprove of the afrangemenb as to the Menam Valley, which practically leaves open a source of perpetual dispute and friction. The Niger difficulty is to be referred to a commission of inquiry, and the Tunisian Treaty is to be further examined by the delegates of both ilatiohs, which practically leaves these questions still open to' be settled at another period. Lord Salisbury and M. de Courcel were evidently animated by a praiseworthy desire to settle something or other, but their mutual efforts do not appear to have been very successful. The German Imperial message", and the speech which followed it at a state banquet, evidently foreshadow a hearty demand for money from the Reichstag for the increase of the German na\y. The Emperor William's allusion to a " greater Germany beyond the. sea," indicates the intention of founding a great German Colonial Empire, for which purpose a considerable augmentation of the German fleet is necessary. When Prince Bismarck pushed France, then under the guidance of the late Jules Ferry, into colossal enterprises, he did not foresee that one day Germany would follow suit, and that the policy of colonial entension would be deliberately aroused by the head of the German State. Nor has Prince Bismarck notified bis opinions on this subject, for his acceredited organs openly express disapproval of any considerable extension of the Colonial Empire of Germany. " Germany " say? one of the leading Bismarckian organs, "is a European state, and its interests are pre-eminently European, that must not be sacrificed to a colonial expansion, which would prove a source of weakness rather than of strength.