SIAM’S FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE REIGN

In the average Siamese school textbook the modernisation of the country appears as an exclusive contribution of King Chulalongkorn and the problem of the danger to Siam of Western expansion in the nineteenth century crystallized around the Paknam incident of 1893 when two French gunboats forced open the passage up the river to Bangkok, the incident ending in the renunciation by Siam of all her cla. [...] The principle of functional division in the administration as represented by the creation of the offices in the Kalahome and the Mahatthai operated only at the top and did not entail a sharp division of the personnels of the administration into military and civil groups. [...] 36 SIAM’S FOREIGN RELATIONS The second step in the rise to power of the Phra Klang was the transfer of the southern provinces from under the control of the Kalahome to that of the Phra Klang in 1733. [...] In addition to contributing to the gradual embitterment of Franco-Siamese relations, the early unscrupulous conduct of the Chinese pointed out at an early date to the Siamese, if not the disadvantage of the actual policy admitting the Westerners into the country, at least the disadvantage of the system of extraterritoriality. [...] In 1863 the ministers told King Mongkut that if it was decided to send another mission to China the discrepancy in the contents of the Chinese and the Siamese versions must be made clear to the European representatives in Bangkok.7 Whatever the worth of the theory the fact remains that although the Siamese authority knew all along that Siam had acquiesced in the Chinese claim of suzerainty, the kn.