THE SURVEY QUESTION IN COCHIN CHINA, 281 



have allowed for all contingencies, M. BoiLLOUX has neglect- 

 ed to take into account the mistakes and disappointments which 

 are inevitable here in an undertaking of this kind. He has 

 not taken into consideration that, where such a large staff 

 is employed, in spite of all the care taken in recruiting, a 

 comparatively large number of important hands must be 

 non-effectives, spending without producing ; that of the 84 

 surveyors employed at the start, Very few would see the end 

 of the work ; that provision must therefore be made for re- 

 placing them and for the instruction of their successors ; all 

 this at a very considerable outlay, which he has not taken 

 into account. 



On the other hand, in reckoning on three-fifths of the Colony 

 being under cultivation before the completion of the survey, M. 

 BoiLLOUX seems to me to have been led into exaggeration 

 in the opposite direction. 



These three and-a-half million hectares will no doubt be 

 under the plough some day, but this can only be in the 

 distant future, much further off than the end of the 16 years 

 allowed by M. BoiLLOUX. To obtain such an extension of 

 cultivation, so rapidly, it would be necessary to take in hand 

 the reclamation, by means of canals and embankments, of 

 the unreclaimed swamp which comprises one-half of the Colony, 

 and to populate the lands thus gained by forming new villages 

 on them. At no great outlay, I fancy, a large part of the 

 extensive marshes to the north of Cholon and of Tanan, those 

 of the plain of Reeds (Jones) of Baclieu, Cantho, Soctrang, 

 Longxuyen and Chaudoc and even perhaps the vast unin- 

 habited tracts of Rachgia, Camau and Hatien might be drain- 

 ed sufficiently to allow of their conversion into paddy-fields. 



But these drainage works on which, in my opinion, the 

 Colony ought to concentrate its greatest energy, must, it 

 seems, be reserved for another generation, and one cannot, 

 therefore, take as a basis for calculation the results which 

 may be produced by them. 



It is necessary to seek elsewhere grounds on which to 

 base estimates which the periodical recurrence of these 

 visionary schemes induces me, in my turn, to present to you 

 to-day. 



