Directory_and_Chronicle_1939 — Page 1273

INDO-CHINA

The French possession of Indo-China lies between 8 deg. 30 min. and 23 deg. 23 min N. lat. and 97 deg. 40 min. and 107 deg. E. long. (Paris), and comprises the colonies of Cochin-China, the protectorates of Cambodia, Annam, Tonkin, and Laos and the territory of Kwang Chéoù Wan leased from China. The total area of Indo-China is 286,000 square miles and is under the direction of a Governor- General who, under the authority of the "Minister of Colonies" represents the French Republic and has all the powers of the French Government. The Governor- General is assisted by two councils:

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1. The Grand Conseil des Intérêts Economiques et Financiers" including 28 French members and 23 native members, elected by local assemblies or appointed by the Governor-General. The Grand Conseil is compulsorily consulted on the budget and every other questions that the Governor-General may design.

2. The "Conseil de Gouvernement de l'Indochine", a body which includes the chiefs of leading services of the administration and five native members whose business is to take care of the interest of each colony or protectorate they respectively represent. The Council of Government and the Grand Conseil are movable bodies, meeting in any of the chief towns according to the summons of the Governor-General who keeps two official residences: Hanoi and Saigon; the former remains, however, the seat of the administration.

The Governor-General is assisted also by the "Secrétaire Général du Gouvernement Général de l'Indochine" who has a special and permanent delegation to settle every question that the Governor-General has not reserved to himself.

The deltas of Cochin-China and Tonkin are fertile; Annam, connecting them, is a long mountainous tract, with a narrow littoral on one side, and a wild sparsely populated hill tract stretching to the Mekong river on the other. Rice, maize, cotton, sugar, seeds, tobacco, and spice are the principal products of the alluvial districts. The principal mineral production is coal, which is mined exclusively in Tonkin (in districts such as Ke-Bao, Hongay, Dong-Trieu, Campha, Thai-Nguyen, Ninh-Binh, Tuyen Quang, etc.) The output averages 2,000,000 tons а year, 600,000 of which are used in the country and the remainder is exported. Other minerals, including gold, silver, tin, copper, lead and antimony, exist in the Protectorate and are more or less mined. Zinc mines are worked on a large scale and the annual output of zinc ore amounts to nearly 12,000 tons.

The principal harbours are Haiphong, Hongay and Campha in Tonkin, Tourane, Vinh-Ben Thuỷ, Natrang, Cam-Ranh and Quinhon in Annam, Saigon in Cochin- China, and Phnom Penh and Ream in Cambodia. The weather is warm and humid year long in the South, and in the North (that is in Tonkin) although summer days are very like those of Cochin-China-dry and wet-one can enjoy, from October to April, a true fresh season, a winter, during which a very thin rain sometimes falls. As to central-Annam,-the weather can be called an intermediary one, which varies insensibly between those of Tonkin and Cochin-China.

There are 2,900 kilometers of railway completed and opened to traffic in Indo- China, while 465 kilometers operated in the Chinese province of Yunnan belong also to the French. The population is estimated at over 23,000,000, most of whom are Annamites. The Chinese number 400,000, and the Europeans amount to 46,000. The Chinese have immigrated in large number to the South of Cochin-China, where they had obtained almost the exclusive possession of industries and com- merce. But, since after the world war, the Annamites, especially those who come from the North (that are the Tonkinese), have begun to make use of their ability in trade and industries, and the Chinese find a hard time owing to concurrence they find from the natives. The Cambodians are naturally apathetic, and have given way to the Chinese and Annamites. The Laotians and Mois,

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