24 Minnie Throop England 



tion, and so on. 88 German methods, it will be seen, do not lead 

 so directly to trade development as do the British. 



Lister in his report on the French colonies says that the " value 

 of the Colonies to France is commercial ; ner conquests should 

 be economic, and the object of her colonial policy should be not 

 to plant offshoots of the French race in new countries . . . but to 

 further the economic development of these countries in order to 

 secure commercial outlets." 89 Commercial motives are becoming 

 increasingly predominant. The French colonies in the Orient are 

 mere commercial outposts. It is the chief aim of the adminis- 

 tration in Indo-China to encourage trade with France. These 

 efforts, however, have not been very successful. The leaders in 

 the import trade are British and German, and the Chinese are 

 chiefly in control of the export trade and domestic transactions. 90 

 The great natural obstacle to the development of Indo-China is 

 the absence of navigable rivers. The Songkoi river in Tongking 

 turned out to be worthless as a waterway. Attention therefore 

 has been turned to railway projects. The Tongking- Yunnan line 

 which is to traverse Yunnan, the southwestern province of China, 

 is designed to secure the trade of Szechuan, which is a very rich 

 and populous province of China. But there are two chief factors 

 which promise to defeat this plan. One is that the trade of 

 Szechuan can more easily be carried by way of the Yangtse 

 waterway ; the other is the restrictive influence of the French 

 customs which examines everything, fails properly to close the 

 packets, and in other ways hinders trade. 91 The development of 

 Indo-China has been hindered most of all, however, by a defec- 

 tive colonial system. Tongking and Cochin-China especially are 

 capable of development for both are very fertile countries, having 

 great rice-growing deltas. Taken as a whole, the fertility of the 

 French colonies comprised under the term Indo-China is very 

 great. The principal products are rice, Indian corn, tobacco, 



88 Eliot, East Africa Protectorate, 256-261. 



89 Report by the Honorable Reginald Lister, His Majesty's Minister at 

 Paris, on the French Colonies, 1-2. 



80 Morris, History of Colonization, 1: 454. 

 91 Colquhoun, Mastery of the Pacific, 411-412. 



200 



