M. Le Myre de Vilers, Deputy for Cochin China, has
addressed a letter to the French Minister of Justice, which has somehow got into the papers, containing charges of extreme gravity against the local Colonial Administration. He tells the Minister of Justice that he lately wrote to the Minister for the Colonies informing him "that several hundred Annamites had been summarily executed in conse- quence of the insurrection of Ky Dong." This was done without any legal sanction, and contrary to the Penal Code. He adds that in Cochin China, when lately a sum of 1,900 piastres was stolen from the Lieutenant-Governor, his palace servants were arrested and tortured. "Forced by their sufferings, these unfortunate fellows confessed the crime of which they were falsely accused." The examining Magistrate, to make matters worse, soon arrested the real culprits and recovered 1,800 piastres out of the 1,900 stolen. Such acts, says M. Le Myre de Vilers, pave the way for the loss of the colonies. "The examples of Cuba and the Philippines prove it superabundantly." He therefore begs an impartial inquiry into the administration of justice in Indo-China. Coming from a man of so much authority in regard to Indo- China as M. Le Myre de Vilers, these accusations are most important. Asiatic rulers may practise arbitrary methods of this kind, but it is a foundation on which Europeans dare not build their rule in the tropics. Asia will suffer Euro- peans, though not even then gladly, if they are efficient and avoid cruelty and oppression. If, however, they become as great tyrants as those she breeds herself, their rule cannot endure.
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