Tonkin, or France in the Far East #266554

Within the last few months France has been deluged by a shower of books bearing on the Tonkin question. In none of these - and I think I have perused almost every scrap of writing that has appeared on the subject - have I discovered any symptom of astonishment, any expression of reprobation, at the course adopted by the Government of the Republic in its political or military policy. The French public and the French press seem to take it for granted that their Foreign Ministers should be guilty of duplicity, and their military commanders of cruelty. No stern rebuke has been meted out to M. Ferry for his garbled telegram relative to the disavowal by the Pekin Government of the Marquis Tseng, nor have Admiral Courbet or General Bouet been reprimanded for the wholesale execution of their prisoners. On the contrary, French writers applaud these excesses.