Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/397

Rh perilously near to the powder-magazine the match had come.

The war-cloud fortunately blew by, the parties interested agreeing to postpone any definite decision as to mutual concessions to a later date, and it was not until 1896—the commission arranged for under the terms of the protocol of July 1893 not having started until December 1894—that the matter was finally adjusted. By an Agreement signed in that year by Lord Salisbury and the French ambassador in London, the integrity of the kingdom of Siam was guaranteed and the line of division between "the possessions or spheres of influence" of the two countries to the north of that state determined. By the boundary therein decided Great Britain admitted the claims of France to the ownership of the Möng Hsing district of Kiang Cheng—an admission which was all the easier to make, as Lord Salisbury somewhat cynically remarked in forwarding a copy of the Agreement to the British ambassador in Paris, owing to "its extent and intrinsic value not being large,"