Rhine Palace.
As the details of Freer and Thomson's conversation became public, the East African high officials present also began an intense discussion.
Ernst asked, "What do you think of the four colonies the French want to hand over to us?"
Finance Minister Logens said, "The French clearly intend to divert disaster eastward, making it possible for us to come into conflict with the British in the future."
"But the French have not acted very generously either. These colonies of theirs are truly rather tasteless—take their three colonies in India, for instance. At most, they are three colonial outposts of somewhat decent scale, small in area, with the locals consisting largely of enterprises and factories established by the French."
"We cannot possibly deal with the enterprises and factories established by these French people through heavy-handed measures. But if we set aside those French enterprises, there will be even less for us to make use of."
"At the same time, the French colonies in India are not very secure. In the past, both the Dutch and the British seized these regions from the French, only to return them to France later for various reasons."
"Moreover, the port conditions there are not very good. Take the local administration and Karikal, for example: their ports were built entirely around rivers flowing into the sea. There are no bays. Only Yanan has somewhat better conditions, being situated in the Godavari River Delta."
India's coastline was quite long, even longer than that of the East African mainland. Of course, that was counting Myanmar, Bengal, and Palestine from the previous life as part of it.
But most of India's coastline was too straight, lacking the conditions needed to build ports. Take the East Coast, for instance—its straightness was almost comparable to Somalia's coast in East Africa.