Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/137

101 JENS IVERSON WESTENGARD loi 'Debt Slavery,' not the repulsive form of servitude we had before the war, but yet a servitude that usually lasts for life, was abol- ished in Bangkok thirty-six years ago. I have told the governor it can no longer exist here, but must go, and he has agreed it shall. The framing of a proper law on this point will be my first care on returning to Bangkok. The old rule has been absolute, but I am inclined to think that after all it was probably the best rule for the people; however, it is useless to philosophize on this point. The old order must change. All that can be done is to make the change in the least painful way." Here speaks the born administrator, thirty-three years of age and six months on the job. His work with the local Siamese officials completed, his mission took him to Saigon, the capital of French Cochin China, where he had "a long and serious conversation with the Governor General covering the relations of Siam with France." The understanding there arrived at led to better relations between the two countries, and eventually to the treaty of 1907, which settled all questions of dispute. Strobel left Siam on leave in December, 1904. On the homeward journey he contracted the infection which so hampered his later activities and eventually caused his death in 1908. From that time on the administrative burden was carried chiefly by Westen- gard. In the second treaty with France, concluded in 1907, he relinquished to the French all territory on the eastern boundary that was not inhabited by Siamese, and in exchange secured the return to Siam of more vital districts nearer the capital, thus placing the boundary on a secure geographical and ethnical basis, which insured stability and permanence. Moreover, Siam obtained im- portant modifications in' the exterritoriality of French subjects in Siam, and from an attitude of stimulated nationalism and antagonism he brought the Siamese people and government into cordial relations with their French neighbors, thus paving the way for Siam's support to France in the Great War. But perhaps his greatest triumph in foreign diplomacy was the treaty concluded with Great Britain in 1909. By its terms Siam relinquished to Great Britain all claims over three petty states in the Malay peninsula over which Siam had exerted only a nominal sovereignty. In return the British government gave up their exterritorial rights and granted a loan of six million pounds at I