The program of modernization initiated by King Rama IV was continued and expanded by his son, the great Chulalongkon (Rama V). Among the important reforms instituted during this reign were the abolition of debt slavery, the establishment of law courts, the construction of railways, the spread of education, regulation of the conditions of military service, and radical changes in methods of revenue and rural administration. The appointment of trained officials under organized control in place of ignorant provincial governors and hereditary chieftains welded the loose agglomeration of feudatory dependencies into the modern, homogeneous state. In the year 1863, Norodom, whom Siam had placed upon the Cambodian throne, made a treaty with France, now master of Annam, by which he accepted French protection; at almost the same time he made an exactly similar compact with Siam. Thus each country found itself responsible for the protection of Cambodia against any possible aggressor, while each was given the sole right of dictating the foreign policy of that state. So absurd a situation could not last and, after 4 years of negotiation, Siam was compelled to yield to the French thesis of their superior rights as successors to the Annamese kings, to abrogate her treaty of 1863, and to abandon all claim to suzerainty over Cambodia. Soon after Siam's withdrawal from Cambodia, the unofficial advocates of colonialism in France began to advance the idea that certain Siamese provinces east of the river Me Khong, having at one time formed a part of Annam, should be restored to that Kingdom, now a French protectorate. There is no historical basis for this claim, which was at first unsupported even in Paris, but when the colonial party added the argument that the unnavigable Me Khong, as one of the future trade routes of Southwest China, must at all costs be acquired by France, the French Government formally demanded of Bangkok the provinces in question. The Siamese replied by suggesting that the disputed territory be regarded as neutral until such time as the frontier could be properly demarcated and this was agreed upon but merely led to further trouble, each side accusing the other of violating the compact. Siam asked for arbitration, which was declined by the French. When, in 1893, bloody collisions occurred along the border, French gunboats, dispatched from Saigon, ascended the Chao Phraya, despite efforts of the Siamese naval forces to bar the way. In consequence of Siamese resistance, the French greatly increased their demands, now insisting that Siam give up all territory east of the Me Khong (including about half of the rich province of Luang Phrabang, to which no French claim had ever previously been laid). After 10 days of blockade, the Siamese had no choice but to accept a humiliating treaty which, among other concessions, required immediate evacuation of her eastern outposts and the payment of an indemnity; as a guarantee,