[Inclosure in No. 512.—From New York
Herald (Paris edition), June 6.]
Mr. Hanotaux explains to the parliamentary
committee the necessity of his bill.
treaties to become null.
Mr. Hanotaux, minister of foreign affairs, made an important
statement yesterday to the parliamentary committee charged to
examine the bill annexing Madagascar, or to employ the term
preferred by Mr. Hanotaux, declaring Madagascar a French colony.
Mr. Hanotaux said that personally he had been in favor of
establishing a protectorate over the island, and when minister of
foreign affairs previously had had a treaty signed with the Queen of
Madagascar on that basis. But the Bourgeois ministry had held
different views and had had a unilateral treaty signed by the Queen
of Madagascar, annulling the protectorate clause in the first
treaty, and following which the French Government notified the
powers that they had taken possession of Madagascar.
The situation thus created, continued Mr. Hanotaux, was not clear or
precise. The régime resulting from the “taking of possession” was
not defined. Two powers—Great Britain and the United States—had
treaties with Madagascar, and Germany and Italy had the tariff of
the most favored nation.
In acknowledging the receipt of the document notifying the taking
possession of Madagascar by France, and in replying to more explicit
notes in which the French Government notified that it intended to
reserve a traitement de faveur for French
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products on their entrance into the island,
the British Government replied that it was not acquainted with the
régime de la prise de possession, and that in its opinion, the
annexation of the island not having been pronounced, the effects of
the treaties passed by England with the Malagasy Government still
subsisted. The Government of the United States, in a dispatch of a
very precise nature, insisted on the necessity of a categorical
declaration in regard to the act of annexation.
It was with a view of putting an end to this unsettled situation that
the Government had brought forward the bill under examination. The
attitude of the Government had already occasioned an entirely
favorable reply from the United States, which had recognized that
when Madagascar becomes a French colony treaties passed previously
with the Malagasy Government become as a consequence null and
void.
Mr. André Lebon, minister of colonies, in the course of explanations
regarding the interior administration of the island as a colony,
said that the Government intended to exempt all French products from
duty on their entrance into Madagascar on the day after the
promulgation of the law.
The bill declaring Madagascar a French colony was then unanimously
adopted by the committee and Mr. Le Myre de Villers was appointed
reporter.
