I N the nine . of Tuesday a correspondent gives a most
instructive account of recent French colonial policy in Indo-China. Twenty years ago this was the most discredited of French possessions,—a mere political shuttlecock tossed to and. fro between the Colonial and Anti-Colonial parties, and. costing the mother-country not much less than a million pounds per annum. Over twenty- five thousand French troops were kept constantly employed. in an unhealthy territory, and it was small wonder that the names of Tongking and Anam began to weary the French people. They ruined. the career of Jules Ferry, that unfortunate apostle of French expansion. But the Providence which watches over a country in despite of its masters sent Indo-China a succession of highly efficient Governors,—M. de Lanessan, M. Rousseau, and M. Doumer. The last, indeed, is a Proconsul of a new type in French colonial history : a strong man with a natural power of shaping rude materials into a civilised. administration, and, above all, a man with a talent for constructive finance. In all works of reconstruction, finance is generally found, as in the case of Egypt, to be the cardinal problem ; and M. Doumer, who is one of the ablest of modern French financial experts, recognised the necessity of laying a sound economic foundation. The position which faced him when he became Governor-General of Indo-China, in 1896 was a sufficiently difficult one. The separate provinces which composed the colony—Tongking, Anam, Cambodia, Laos, and Cochin- China—were not properly united. The Governor-General governed Tongking but not Indo-China, and the various local governments were at sixes and sevens. Tongking was not yet pacified; elsewhere the French administration was nominal or unpopular. M. Doumer began by changing the status of the Governor-General, making him respon- sible for the whole of the colony, and putting the separate administrations into the hands of Lieutenant-Governors. Having established the constitutional framework (and having, incidentally, pacified Tongking), he set himself to the heavy task of financial reform. He created a Legis- lative Council, on the analogy of the Viceroy's Council in India, but with certain representative elements ; he established new departments for matters common to all the provinces which could be best controlled from head- quarters; and, following a German precedent, he created a General Budget, to which all indirect taxation was allocated, as opposed. to the provincial Budgets, which received the direct taxes. How effectively the administra- tion has been centralised is shown by the Budget of 1904, in which 65,000,000 francs are assigned to the General Budget, and only 32,000,000 to the five provincial govern- ments.
There is no record. of any colony, as the Times correspondent justly observes, whose whole character has been so completely changed in so short a time. The official service, which used to be reinforced from the less competent members of the home services, has become an efficient and much-sought-after profession. The rate of taxation is said to be considerably lower than that of any British tropical colony. Since 1893 the external trade has increased from 162,000,000 to 400,000,000 francs, and the coasting trade from 54,000,000 to 156,000,000. This is clear proof that, whatever faults may still exist in the administration, there has been a very real advance in the prosperity of the people. But the most significant fact is yet to come. So far from being any charge on France, Indo-China has made a military contribution to the mother-country during the last five years of more than 40,000,000 francs. France in return granted the colony leave to raise a loan of eight millions sterling for public works, which has been partially raised and. expended on a large scheme of railway construction, aimed, it is said, at opening up the Yunnan trade. French Indo-China, in short, has become a self-sustaining colony, with a sound government and a clear national policy. It is a phenomenon worthy of our closest attention, for it is the first undoubted success in French expansion.
It all marks a very complete change, which has been some time in process, and may now be said to have come to completion, in what for want of a better name we may call French Imperialism. At one time France's colonies were subordinated to her local politics, a mere extra card to play in the eternal game of office-seeking. There was no con- sistent policy, they were ill-administered and neglected, and. not unnaturally they proved a burden. While poli- ticians wrangled the people of France had to pay the piper, and. the average Frenchman is not an enthusiast for taxation which he does not understand. The Proconsuls were hampered with ill-informed instructions from home, and they had also the assurance that as likely as not the home Government would fail to support them in carrying out these instructions. The result was confusion and local anarchy. A Governor had no sooner proved. his mettle than he was liable to be recalled in deference to some Paris intrigue. Nowadays this has all changed for the better. M. Doumer in Indo-China, and General Gallieni in Madagascar, have remained in office long enough to carry out their policies of reconstruction, and have received loyal support from the home Government. As the Times correspondent observes, "even if it could be shown that the work of M. Doumer was worse than his worst enemy believes it to have been, it would still be an extremely healthy sign, so far as the colonial policy of France is concerned, that he should have been allowed to do it." Moreover, a serious colonial policy is growing up in France, as is shown by the writings and speeches of men like M. Etienne,—a policy quite distinct from militarism or a spasmodic land-hunger. France is begin- ning to understand the meaning of colonisation, and we hope it is not unfriendly to say that such an under- standing generally follows upon some success or other. In Indo-China she has an indubitable achievement; Algeria appears to be entering upon a prosperous career ; Tunis, for a comparatively new colony, has done all that could be expected of her. The bold engineering enter- prises in the Sahara seem destined. to redeem some consider- able parts of that vast territory from waterless desola- tion. In West Africa there is no doubt about the value of France's work. Her Senegalese soldiers are as efficient a fighting force as any native levies of our own, and our officials have borne frequent testimony to the capacity for tropical administration shown by the younger school of French officials. Lastly, in Morocco she has a field. of activity not unlike our own in Egypt twenty years ago. It is becoming clearer every, day that the Mahommedan peoples adjacent to Europe are fated to be governed. under the tutelage of one or other of the great European Powers. Modern civilisation cannot permit anachronisms within its own pale. If France can make of North-East Africa a prosperous State, beneficial alike to governor and governed, then she will deserve to set her achievement beside Egypt and take rank as one of the greatest colonising Powers. She has high qualities for the task, for she is infinitely more elastic in her methods than Germany, and. does not seek to import an irrelevant European officialism ; and she has also a remarkable instinct for sound finance, without which colonisation is a castle of sand. Our one fear is that she may fail if confronted with a complex society and. religion and long-settled national traditions. She has been less successful in Algeria than in Senegal, and even in lade-China there is always the risk that she may run counter to some cherished. Chinese or Malay institution or dogma. For the French political mind, while elastic enough in civil affairs, is apt to be intolerant of a moral, religious, or speculative creed. at the opposite pole to her own. Britain has been content to accept the inevitable and give it her protection : France has an inclination to proselytise and bring up to date. There is a chance—though, we hope, a small one—that the new theory of colonial policy may forget that institutions, however excellent, are better when engrafted upon the national life of a people than when set up after a root- and-branch destruction.
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