FRANCE AND CHINA.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4658, 8 December 1883, Page 2

FRANCE AND CHINA.

The Paris correspondent of the " Times " declares the following to be substantially the reply of Chiua _tp 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, j£ you wish it to be you, who, under th«r cloak of Annam, occupy the neutral zone, we shall not agree to a neutral zone, and it is only after a war with U3 that you will keep Annam and Tonquin. The neutral zone as marked out topographically is almost at Tonquin. ,; It . were better to divide Annam, 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 ot the treaty of 1874, as you are at Shanghai by virtue of the treaty of 1851. If you wish it you can establish yourself elsewhere on the same „-- conditions, you can ask us every boh- . cession in favour of freedom of trade; we will grant them to you, not only ia, ■ Tonquin, bat even beyond it, even . in, \ China. You would extend your Cochin China colony, you would open up to.the '>' trade of the world the Bed River, the Yunnan, and' tho banks of the river in China'itself. We should disturb each other no further, and all without striking a blow. Bat we shall not without a fight; give up the delta of the Red River, oar » short practical route to the sea, to a king-dom-of Annam, which will be. another; name for France. Ask Europe whether she advises us to do so." , >, ;x