The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1895-10-12
FRANCE LOVES HER NOT.
England Can Receive No Comfort
From Her Friends Across
the Channel.

Russia She Must Appeal to in Or.
der That Her Reputation
| Be Sustained.
1t Would Appear That Lord rlac-
I auIey' Words Might Some
times Come True.
"A Paris correspondent thus talks of
affairs in general:
The repairs ITO the hall of the senate
and chamber of deputies have been COM
pleted in anticipation Of the return Of the
legislators after their summer vacation,
and all France is anxi0usly awaiting the
opening of parliament. This has been
postponed as late as possible by the gov
ernment whose members are now in NOR
tai fear of meeting the irate deputies.
Everything Indicates that the coming ses-
sion will be the most stormy since the
! Panama scandals were unearthed.
| French public opinion on the Madagas-
car expedition is beginning to make itself
heard in chorus of ominous growls from
the press which are forerunners OF tor
rents of denunciation from the tribunes
of the senate and the chamber Of deputies.
! The expedition has been very badly man
aged, and at best was foolish enter
| prise got up by a few men to Halter
| French iingoism and desire to have colo
n;es like England, and incidentally to
benefit set of contractors who are the
only people who make anything out OF the
DISASTROUS undertaking.
| The poor French people have again
been fooled by their political leaders, and,
what is worse, some five or six thousand
young men torn from their homes un-
der the compulsory military law will
never come back alive, causing many des-
olate homes and untold heart-breaks.
! Greed is the avowed object Of the ex-
| pedition, which is undertaken for the
purpose of annexing Madagascar to the
French colonial empire, which is rapidly
| assuming too unwiedy dimensions for the
! home government to administer. AS
| there is very little local self-government
under the French system, and the heads
of bureaus in Paris have to be consulted
about all sorts of affairs in Tonquin and
Guiana, in Dahomey and New Gale
donia, it can readily be seen that France
is almost always embroiled with her col
onies. %.
| Moreover, as very few Frenchmen en-
:grate to them with the intention OF grow
! ing up with the country, most OF the col
onies consist of horde of ill-treated ma
tives bossed by few officials sent out by
the home government, who intend to
make all they can and return as soon as
possible to la belle France to spend the
rest of their days in idleness as small
renters or capitalists. m
But notwith hstanding repeated warnings
IN Tunis and Tonquin, both of which ex-
| experiments cost the nation dear, the gov
ernment determined on annexing NADIA
gascar They had no suitable transports
| for troops and equipments, so they had to-
| hire English vessels-a thing which they
did with rather i'll grace. Then to convey
| the arms and provisions 9,OOoOO0 francs
was expended for several hundred iron
wagons. called tsvoitures Lefebvre" after
| the name of the contractor. These were
CONSTRUCTED with broad iron tres five Or
six inches wide to prevent their sinking
! in the swamps It was found afterWard
that the wide tires disappeared below the
surface of the marshes quite as readily as
narrow ones would have done.
Tn order to facilitate the transfer OF
the wagons from the ships to the shore
a number of wooden rafts were con-
structed, as the vessels could not ap-
proach near enough 10 the beach, In
sh;pping the equipment, however, the
RATS were packed in the bottom of the
hold of the steamers and the iron waas
ons they were to carry were loaded on
| ton. so that there had to be considerable
| shifting Of cargo before the wagons were
finally landed.
# Then it was discovered that there was
! no road and that one would have to be
cut for hundreds of miles through virgin
| forests with luxuriant tropical vegeta-
| tion forming thick undergroN1th so that
progress could only be made step by step.
This has delayed the expedition to the
verge Of. the rainy season disheartened
the soldiers and placed over one-third on
| the sick list, while. it has enormously
heightened the cost and rendered the
result doubtful,
1t must be borne in mind that France
! il attempting to annex q country 80, 900
square miles larger than France Itself,
with a population of between 1000, ,000
and 5000 900. over one third of whom are
fairly civilized and armed The Hovls
l are not by any means as unskilled and
/ ignorant as the natives of Africa just
across the Mozambique channel They
have irregular army Of 20 600 men, which
has been largely increased by volun teers
since last October, when hostil ilittes be-
/ gan.
To conquer the island the French have
sent q force Of 15, 900 men, which must be
Edtstr ibuted along a line of Ncommullica-
Itions $50 miles long from Matunga to
IAntananarivo,sth the capt. he first 65
lmllessW were through % NAL ions district,
where tie troops were assailed by fever,
and g 900 men are now on tie
lsick llst. as atl1nit yesterday ins an
The tlses sofs tho d was unfor-
lfnlate for the COVER rnmeiit al The OPP
i III IS fiofa ~ t ss kin Is hny many
Il III niaIs Are inv alfdst inti isxtate fha
Il Il FEM nj emf MA f0fee..