Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/19

1899.] the first consideration were attacked on all sides for not repressing Ritualists on the one hand, and on the other not insisting upon Evangelicals conforming with the rubrics.

The publication of the Madagascar blue book so immediately after the withdrawal of Major Marchand from his foothold on the Nile at Fashoda was differently interpreted in this country than in France. To the former, the correspondence showed the danger of allowing questions in dispute to be suspended; whilst to the French it seemed only another instance of British eagerness to provoke a quarrel upon a point of little or no importance. The matter of good faith and unequivocal promise was altogether put aside by French publicists, who for once seemed almost unanimous in supporting their Government in the past and in the present. The principal document in the blue book was a despatch dated July, 1898, in which Lord Salisbury called the attention of the French Foreign Minister to the position into which things had drifted. In 1890 the French Ambassador in London had stated in writing that "it is understood that the establishment of the protectorate [over Madagascar] will not affect any rights or immunities enjoyed by British subjects on the island." These rights were the most-favoured-nation treatment, and an agreement that the duty upon imports should never exceed an ad valorem duty of 10 per cent. In 1894 and 1895 the French went to war with Madagascar. We took up a friendly attitude, and did not issue a proclamation of neutrality, which would have embarrassed the French, because we were assured that our commercial rights under the protectorate would not be interfered with; M. Berthelot, the Foreign Minister, publicly declaring in the Chamber on November 27, 1895, that the occupation of the island would raise no difficulties, as France would respect the engagements made with foreign Powers. Nevertheless, in June, 1898, a decree was issued greatly increasing the duties on British goods. Against this state of things Lord Salisbury ordered Sir Edward Monson to protest. No reply, however, was given to our remonstrance, and shortly afterwards the Fashoda incident threw every other international question into the background; but up to the close of the year no French Foreign Minister had thought fit to make answer to Sir Edward Monson's protest, or to explain what was apparently a flagrant act of bad faith. In addition to this strange display of international discourtesy, the blue book gave instances of the way in which French officials had attempted to boycott English goods, and to force French goods upon the native population. Threats of imprisonment were made to natives buying English goods, and the French local newspaper published at Tamatave gave publicity to the following speech of a French official to a meeting of natives: "I will not allow any one of you to buy any goods whatever in the shops of Messrs. So-and-So, So-and-So, and So-and-So. Any one caught making the smallest purchase,