On Tuesday, the French Minister, accompanied by the gunboats, left
Bangkok. The blockade nominally began on Wednesday, but three days' grace was given to neutral ships to leave the blockaded port,—a fact which seems to show that the French intend to declare a condition of belligerency. Meantime, it is to be noted that Germany and Holland, as well as England, have gunboats at Bangkok. In the House of Lords on Thursday, Lord Rosebery once again defined England's attitude. We have refused in any way to intervene in the dispute, or to pronounce on the merits of the quarrel. All we have done is to make provision for protecting the life and property of British subjects. It is to be regretted that any one should suspect in that provision " an encouragement to the Siamese to persevere in a hopeless resistance." Our only advice to the Siamese has been "to come to terms as quickly as possible with their powerful neighbour." The blockade would raise difficult points of international law ; but it was not yet notified. The " territorial arrangements," no doubt, concern us; but happily France is as fully alive as our- selves to the necessity "that we should nowhere have con- terminous frontiers on the Indo-Chinese Peninsula." That is reassuring. Lord Rosebery may, we feel certain, be fully trusted in the matter; and therefore the less said by the journalists the better. Meantime, it is to be noted that Lord Salisbury, in another column of our issue of to-day, denies the story of the Bombay Gazette that three years ago he made a partition arrangement with M. Waddington.
