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FRENCH INDO-CHINA.
(Daily Press, 8th October.)
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
ment in the direction of administration. The Governor-Generalship has now to do, not merely with local Tongking affairs, but with the whole of Indo-China, and the administrative work has devolved upon a legislative council with extensive powers, the composition of which is well known to us through the medium of the Directory and Chronicle. "In order to provide for the expenses of the newly-created Government a general budget was instituted in 1898
""
It would doubtless be too much to say that most Englishmen, even in the Far East, are possessed of the idea that our neighbours the French residents of Indo-China are failures as colonists; but we have little doult that very many still labour under very hazy impressions of the conditions there. The colonial muddles of France have been so often held up to us that we are apt The principle on which the new budget was, to forget that history does not always repeat so to speak, carved out of the various local itself. Judging by a long article by Mr. budgets was this, that money raised from ALLEYNE IRELAND in the Times last month, indirect taxes should go to the former and one of the series of studies of administration that the latter should depend on direct in the tropics, it seems evident that the
taxes. The sensible assignment of gener unprofitable course of the years between and local interests, the one to the colonial 1887 and 1895 has been replaced by quite government, the other remaining with the a different and better state of things. The local administrations, is evident in the fact mere getting of Indo-China cost France a that whereas before 1898 each territory of great deal, and the first eight years of her the colony controlled its own revenue and occupation cost the mother-country, in re-expenditure, the budgets of 1904 assign 65 pairing deficits in the colonial budgets, the enormous sum of forty millions of francs. Altogether, up to the end of the period referred to, the French Government's outlay, siuce Admiral Rigault de GenoUILLY had first reduced the Saigon forts, was no less than Fr. 750,000,000, or about thirty million pounds sterling. For all this there was no return, and it is little wonder that the members of other and more successful
[October 17, 1904.
A BASELESS COMPLAINT.
(Daily Press, 10th October.)
A Chinese gentleman has written to us ou the matter of the "poker case" recently referred to in this column. We are not. publishing the whole text of the letter, parts of it, especially the introductory passages,"
For the rest, the being quite inadmissible.
nature of its purport will be male evident· in the extracts we quote, and the comments we make. Our esteemed correspondent says: "The police are by no means backward in ar- resting Chinese for gambling, and the magis- trates seldom hesitate in imposing heavy fines on street coolies who are found gambling with a few cents in street corners. Perhaps the gambling ordinance is only meant for en- riching the coffers of the Treasury at the expense of Chinese found gambling, and in- applicable to the young men of the European community; or perhaps the game of poker does not come in under this ordinance at all. If it is an admitted fact that cards and other forms of rash gambling are being indulged in by European young men, how is it that we have never heard of any European house being raided by the police and the gamblers punished? I should think that a little activity on the part of the police in this direction would tend to amp the ardour of young men who are more familiar with high play than high pay."
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millions of francs to the General Govern- mont and only 32 millions to the five sub- ordinate Governments. Improvements all round are said to be admitted; and Indo China, instead of drawing upon the treasury of the Republic, has in five years contributed more than forty million franes towards the military expenditure of the government. These results have been achieved, Mr. IRELAND says, "whilst the rate of taxation has been kept considerably lower than that of any British colony in the tropics," a malter upon which we have to congratulate
There have been many occasions on which our neighbours with feelings somewhat the police of Hongkong have required mixe. For all these blessings, the French
elbow-jogging," and we have reason to have chiefly to thank M. PAUL DOUMEB. believe that since the advent of His Excel- He was appointed Governor-General in lenoy the present Governor they have 1896, and the wonder is, in view of the awakened to the fact that there is an Argus customary mixing up of colonization with
eye bent upon their doings, or failures to politics, that he should have been allowedo. Still, we have never lost sight of the to retain position and power long enough to do what he has done. He had many bitter opponents.
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colonizing nations smiled a superior smile, or that numerous French writers should have indulged in censorious criticisms almost rivalling the intensity of the comments owasioned by the failure of DE LESSEPS. There is no doubt that the dark days of Indo-China were due to the merely political points of view whence Frenchmeu persisted in regarding the enterprise of their nationals in this part of Asia. Politics governed the Hone legislation concerned with the new and undeveloped colony. Even the appoint- ments to the Civil Service were political-- and unsatisfactory. Men conversant with But still, the French colony has not the general principles of Colonial govern- reached anything like Utopia. It has been ment were often passed over in favour of beautified and made charming for its incompetents who were able to command residents; it has been covered with excellent the wire-pullers in Paris, and Indo-China | and useful public works; but its commerce was at the mercy of inexperienced griffins | requires much greater development. Its whose chief interest centred in the gaudy tariff regulations are obnoxious, and they uniforms their novel position entitled them have greatly retarded the economic develop to strut in. Enterprise was discouraged, ment of the country; there are fur too business staguant. Even the administration many Europeans in the Government ser- of justice dissati-fied the people, who grew vice; the lower ranks of the European staff reluctant to submit important civil disputes are filled with men of inferior character and to the Courts. Even as late as 1893, things ability; the police organization is inefficient." were 80 bad in Tongking, Anam, and Mr. IRELAND has not emphasised these Cambodia that the province of Cochin-China, deficiencies, because the brighter side of which alone had struggled into any sem- things commended itself, both for its blance of real civil administration, talked of novelty, and because it seemed the most a separation policy. What trade there was just view to take. We rejoice on ac- was more than four-fifths in the hands of count of our southern neighbour, and we foreigners.
should have rejoiced more if the writer could have seen his way to make a similar glowing report of our own colony. We are accustomed to credit ourselves with sterner and more practical qualities th in the French colonizers, and indeed, in
some material things we have evidence of the truth of that claim; but we should be all the richer by some of that artistic temperament apparent in French Indo-China. It is probable that in that colony they see more in a tree than so many dollars worth of timber.
From this sorry picture of just a decade ago, it is pleasant to turn to the happy and promising present-day conditions, described by Mr. IRELAND. Hongkong's commercial advancement is so noticeable and satisfac- tory that we can afford to look upon the success of our neighbours with friendly eye. We read that French Indo-China is now one of France's most important colonies. Mr. IRELAND says "there is no record of any colony whose whole character has been so completely changed in so short a time.” In nine years its exterior commerce has increased in value from Fr. 162,000,000 to four hundred millions, and of that France has increased her share from less than one fifth to more than a third part. Some of the increase is accounted for by the impor- tation of material for public works, but that, so far from decreasing the importance of the change, is evidence of the improve-
:
One would suppose that India could grow all the cocoanuts she requires within her own limits, but it is not so. In 1903-04 Ceylon supplied no less than sixteen million nuts to India against ten and a half millions the year before. And of betel-nuts India imported over twelve million pounds' weight, worth Rs. 1,501,585, This did not suffice, for the Straits Settlements were indented on for six times this quantity, but of a much less valuable sort, says the Straits Times.
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fact that theirs is a difficult duty to fulfil, that their "lot is not a happy one," and as opportunity has arisen we have tried to hold the balance just as between the police and In the public they are supposed to serve. this particular instance it is obvious that our correspondent had not the slightest ex- cuse for mentioning the police at all. The Ordinance No. 14 of 1844 does not forbid gambling under all circumstances, any more than the Home legislation does. Even if it did, it is obvious again that it is one thing to arrest a few coolies gambling in the open. and quite another to get sufficient informa- tion to warrant a raid into a foreign house or club. Had there been no more than that in our correspondent's letter, there would have been no need to deal with it at all. Much depends upon the meaning he intended the following quotation to convey: "I am afraid this is another of those rather numerous instances which prove to our Chinese fellow subjects the impossibility of putting into practice the o-t-repeated and much-boasted doctrine of British justice which is supposed to be meted out in equal measures. to all its subjects irrespective of race or creed."
We have read into that, involuntarily, a tone that embodies a suggestion which we are bound, not only to contradict, but to use every endeavour to eradicate from the mind of our correspondent, and from the minds of any of his fellow subjects who tay be tempted to make it. There are anomalies attendant upon the administration of British justice, but if our correspondent supposes there is at any time any unjust discrimina- tion against the Chinese, he commits grievous error. If, however, he be content with the mere literal meaning of his words, and renounce their superficial suggestive- ness, we are not so far from being at one with him. We have no assurance as to the