THE SURVEY QUESTION IN COCHIN CHINA. 285 



II. Whatever portion of it is completed will never be kept 

 up and its value will be lost. 



On these two points, I entertain the most absolute convic- 

 tion. I know the Colony well enough not to be afraid that 

 future events will prove me to have been wrong. 



II. 

 1 he Use of the Survey of the Colony. 



I have shown above at what a heavy figure the expense of 

 a cadastral survey must necessarily be estimated. 



I have not attempted to conceal the small amount of con- 

 fidence I entertain of the success of such an undertaking. 



It only remains to give my opinion as to its utility, and on 

 this point I shall speak even more plainly. The cadastral 

 survey (cadastre) , giving the word the meaning it possesses 

 in our language, and in our system of administration, that 

 survey which has, up to the present time, been kept in view 

 in the Colony, and in reference to which the schemes which 

 I have just reviewed have been drawn up, such a survey has 

 no raison d ' etre here, it would be useless ; much more, it 

 would do actual harm. 



We found in Cochin-China an admirable institution which 

 used to be of the greatest service to the Annamite Govern- 

 ment, and which, to us strangers to the lands, the language 

 and the customs of the population, has been still more use- 

 ful ; I refer to the Annamite system of district-government 

 by communes, an institution which, instead of trying to ruin 

 by awkward administrative importations, we ourselves, 

 weakened as we are by centralisation, might perhaps seek to 

 introduce into the mother-country for the good of the nation. 



The native commune has been much encroached upon 

 already, at all events, as regards the collection of the direct 

 taxes (and this is one of its most important functions) ; it 

 still exists with its principal attributes. Beyond the twentieth 

 arrondissement, the Government has no need to know the 

 1,600,000 inhabitants of the Colony. It is sufficient to com- 

 municate with the 2,450 municipalities by the medium of 

 whom the taxes are collected without documents, prosecu- 

 tions or expense. 



