allow of the work upon the railway being continued. In August General Reste, the Commander-in-Chief at Hanoï, made an urgent appeal to the Governor-General for permission to undertake operations against Luu-Ky, on a scale to ensure success; but M. de Lanessan refused to countenance any such movement, and declared that the military authorities ought to be able to crush the bands with the forces already at their disposal, in garrison along the Lang-son route. There is little doubt that the Governor in making this reply was influenced by political motives. The recent successful operations in the Yen-Thé had been utilised to further his political aspirations in France, and the metropolitan press had repeatedly announced, with a great flourish of trumpets, that rebellion and brigandage were now dead in Tonquin. Indeed, in one of his reports to the Colonial Minister, M. de Lanessan had declared that, owing to the success of his administration, the pacification of the colony was now an assured fact, and it was possible to wander over the country with no other protection than a stout walking-stick. The absurdity of such statements was clear in Tonquin, but they found favour with the public in France, where people were only too willing to believe that an era of peace and plenty was at last to open in their Far Eastern possessions, with a consequent cessation of the enormous sacrifices of men and money that had accompanied the past ten years. The Governor, because of this advertisement, was declared to be the first of France's Viceroys capable of grappling with the situation; and as it was his firm intention to again contest, in the near future, the seat in the Chamber which he had resigned on accepting the high position he was now filling, he can hardly be blamed, in a country where men take up politics as a business, for fostering interests which would assure him a considerable number of votes when the time came. That this state of affairs was detrimental to the progress of the colony is certain, but political influence, party hatred and electioneering jobbery have had much to do with retarding the development of Indo-China, since its administration was placed in the hands of a civilian governor and staff in 1886.