PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 407 



been treated as a part of France. The attempt has been made to give 

 the natives a personal status, to destroy the family and the tribe, to 

 break up the communal land-holdings, to apply to the forests the 

 stringent regulations of the French forest laws, with the result that 

 to-day the natives look upon the French as their arch enemies, bent 

 upon destroying their social life and utterly ruining them. It is in 

 the matter of individualism that the assimilating policy is apt to 

 make its most radical attempts at reform. The grouping of popula- 

 tions in families and tribes is looked upon as a mark of barbarism, 

 and it is regarded as the first principle of a liberating policy to 

 recognize the right of the individual fully to control his property. 

 While this is apparently a liberalizing movement, its results are usu- 

 ally far from those aimed at. Not prepared by gradual social evo- 

 lution for the individual status, the native when artificially placed 

 in this position is helpless and becomes a victim of shrewder persons 

 ready to take advantage of his weakness. Thus the natives of India, 

 the fellaheen of Egypt, and the Kabyles of Algeria, when legally 

 individualized, soon lose all effective economic liberty. 



In Indo-China the French began by remodeling and destroying 

 the native institutions and even attempting to introduce the entire 

 legislation of Continental France. But they discovered in time that 

 such a policy, of doubtful wisdom in Algeria, is totally unsuitable 

 for a tropical colony like Indo-China, and at present they show a 

 tendency to maintain such native institutions as the Annamite com- 

 mune and even allow the mandarinate a certain influence. Wherever 

 the French elective and representative institutions have been intro- 

 duced into tropical colonies they have led to the most grotesque 

 results. In the Indian possessions as well as in Senegal, the elections 

 have become a pure formality. Thus, while thousands of votes are 

 officially returned, hardly a native is seen to enter the polling-place 

 on election day, the entire reports being prepared in advance by 

 public officials. During the last decade a powerful opposition has 

 arisen in France to the continuance of the policy of assimilation. 

 This movement has received much support from the success of the 

 French administration in Tunis, where the native institutions, 

 beliefs, and customs have not been unduly interfered with. In West 

 Africa and in Madagascar there has also been a certain willingness 

 to acknowledge the justification of divergent social institutions. 

 But the essential character of French colonial policy is still assimi- 

 lative in the main, although a greater willingness is shown to make 

 concessions to the natural obstacles opposed to such a policy. 



The policy of assimilation rests upon the old rationalist doctrine 

 of the universality of human reason. An institution once declared 

 rational must as such be applicable at all times and in all places; and 

 though individuals may at first in the darkness of superstition resist 



