L’Écho annamite
- Toward the coming colonial elections
- On Germany's entry into the League of Nations
- The truth about the causes of […] at Nam-Dinh
L'Écho annamite urges readers to judge colonial councillors by deeds rather than the resolutions they advertise before an election. It reports arguments about whether incumbents will stand again, while accusing them of private gain. A separate passage challenges the claim that coercive colonial practices have disappeared, citing alleged brutality at the Nam-Dinh cotton mill and asking what Varenne will do. Between these domestic critiques, its League item relays favorable press interpretations of Germany's admission and hopes for small states.
Translation
Toward the coming colonial elections
Resolutions will be the outgoing colonial councillors’ only lifeline. Let us judge people by their actions, not their words.
The colonial elections have at last been fixed for October 10. For several days everyone has been talking about them.
Some maintain that the “monopolist” councillors Trinh, Vinh, Thuong, Màn and Thom will not stand again: during their terms, each has gained enough personal advantages through repeated betrayals of collective interests, and they fear a thrashing at the polls.
Others assert the opposite. Ambition, they say, is a bottomless pocket. Everyone offers an opinion; all are lost in conjecture.
Be that as it may, those of our “monopolists” who intend to stand again are feverishly searching through and arranging the resolutions they submitted at the end of each session during these four years. They are not forgetting to compile everything connected with those resolutions as well.
On Germany's entry into the League of Nations
With a few rare exceptions, newspapers observe that the Reich’s entry into the League of Nations was a truly French day, thanks to Briand’s frank and generous attitude. Most praise Stresemann’s deliberate restraint and believe that the passage on the universality and equality of states announces Germany’s intention to act as advocate for small nations.
The truth about the causes at Nam-Dinh [headline partly damaged]
“Colonialism by the cudgel has had its day,” we are constantly told in certain circles that are fervent supporters of Franco-Annamite rapprochement—a policy good in itself.
To that assertion we reply: yes, it has disappeared from paper and from official speeches, more or less pompous, empty and deceitful. In reality, it dies hard, as the following lines, borrowed from our valiant colleague L’Argus Indochinois, testify.
They concern the recent strike at the Nam-Dinh cotton mill following brutality by a European foreman.
This is not the first strike at the establishment. There have been precedents, due to the same causes, but triggered under “bourgeois” administrations.
This time it is more serious: incidents of this kind, regrettable from every standpoint, are being recorded while a well-known socialist rules Indochina.
What will Varenne do to prevent their recurrence?
Varenne fought—courageously, we acknowledge—for the workers of France, for his constituents.
Does the fate of Annamite coolies, who are not his voters, interest him less?
Varenne has preached to his compatriots a policy of consideration towards the native population.
Will he tolerate its being practised with kicks and punches?
What action will he take against the guilty?
Context
French could also be a language of colonial criticism
L’Écho annamite was a French-language newspaper published by Vietnamese people. Language alone therefore does not identify a paper with the colonial authorities. Here French is used to accuse councillors of self-interest and to challenge the treatment of Vietnamese workers. The page belongs to a press culture in which reporting increasingly became a means of expressing local public opinion and demands for change.
Why a list of resolutions was not enough
The election column distinguishes submitting a proposal from achieving a result. Its outgoing councillors are portrayed assembling four years of resolutions as campaign material, while the opening demand asks voters to judge their conduct. That contrast is the substance of the criticism: a record of speaking in an institution could be presented as service to the public even when the newspaper disputed whose interests had actually been served.
One colonial union, different forms of rule
French-controlled Vietnam was divided into Cochinchina, governed directly as a colony, and Annam and Tonkin, organized as protectorates. These territories were brought into the Indochinese Union, which also included Cambodia and Laos. The page’s language of colonial elections and Franco-Annamite relations emerged within this unequal political geography. A common administration did not mean a single uniform relationship between inhabitants and power.
The factory floor tests a promise of rapprochement
The Nam-Dinh column takes an abstract promise—better relations between French people and the local population—and tests it against treatment inside a cotton mill. A foreman’s violence becomes a question of the government’s responsibility to prevent abuse and punish it. This shift gives the strike a significance beyond a stoppage at one workplace: the daily exercise of authority is made the measure of an announced reform.
Protection for workers who could not vote for him
The argument against Varenne uses his own political commitments. Having defended French workers and his constituents, would he extend the same concern to Vietnamese labourers outside that electorate? The repeated questions expose a gap between political accountability to voters and responsibility towards people under colonial rule. The column demands a concrete decision against the perpetrators to close that gap.
Equality among states, inequality within empire
The League Assembly gave each member state one vote, offering smaller countries a regular place in international deliberations. That institutional promise helps explain the hope that Germany might speak for small nations. Placed on this page beside colonial elections and labour abuse, the international language of equality has a particular resonance: the paper’s readers encountered both claims to equal standing between states and disputes over unequal treatment within colonial society.
Original
Vers les prochaines élections coloniales
Vers les prochaines élections coloniales
l Les vœux seront la seuls planctee de salut des conseillers
coloniaux sortant. - Jugeons les gens sur leurs
i actes, non sur leurs paroles
Les élections coloniales sont enfin
fixées au 10 octobre prochain.
Depuis quelques jours, tout le monde
en parle.
Les uns soutiennent que les conseil-
lers « monopolards » Trinh, Vinh,
Thuong, Màn, Thom ne se représente-
ront pas,chacun d eux ayant, pendant
leur mandat, obtenu suffisamment
d'avantages personnels à la suite de
nombreuses trahisons dès intérêts col-
lectifs; ils craignent de «ramasser une
veste ».
D'autres affirment IL contraire.
L'ambition, prétendent-ils, est une
poche sans fond.
Chacun y va de son avis, tous se
perdent en conjectures.
Quoi qu'il en soit, ceux de nos « mo-
nopolards » qui se proposent de poser
à nouveau leur candidature s'occupent
fébrilement à compulser et à coordon-
ner les vœux qu'ils ont présentés, à
la fin de chaque session, durant ces
4 années. Ils n'oublient pas de com-
piler aussi tout ce qui se rapporte à
ces vœux.
Autour de l'entrée de r Allemagne dans la S. D. N.
Autour de l'entrée de r Allemagne
dans la S. D. N.
A l'exception de quelques rares or-
ganes, les jouTnaux constatent que
l'entrée du Reich dans la Société des
Nations a été une véritable journée
française, grâce à l'attitude franche
et généreuse de M. Briand ; la plu-
part louent la discrétion voulue de
M. Stresemann et croient que le pas-
sage sur l'universalité et l'égalité des
Etats annonce que l'Allemagne vou-
dra jouer le rôle d'avocat des petites
nations.
La vérité sur les causes de la ime le Nam-Dinh
La vérité sur les causes de la ime le Nam-Dinh
Le « colonialisme à la trique * a fait son temps, ne cesse-t-on de répéter dans
certains milieux partisans à tous crins de la politique — bonne en soi, — de rap-
prochement franco-annamite.
A cette affirmation, nous répondons : Oui, il a disparu du papier, des
discours officiels, plus ou moins pompeux, vides et mensongers ; dans la réalité, il a
la vie dure, témoin les lignes suivantes que nous empruntons à notre vaillant con-
frère l'Argus Indochinois.
Il s'agit de la récente grève survenue à la cotonnière de Nam-Dinh à la suite
de brutalités d'un contre-maître européen.
Cette grève ri est pas la première en date -dans l'établissement \industriel en
question; il y a des précédents, dus aux mêmes causes, mais déclanchês sous des
proconsulats « bourgeois ».
Cette fois, c'est plus grave ; car c'est au cours du règne en Indochine d'un socia-
liste notoire que des incidents de ce genre, regrettables à tous les points de vue,
sont enregistrés.
Que va faire. M. Varenne pour en empêcher le retour ?
M. Varenne a combattu — courageusement, nous le reconnaissons, — pour les
ouvriers de France, pour ses mandants.
Le sort des coolies annamites, qui ne sont pas ses électeurs, Vintéresse-t-it moins ?
M. Varenne a prêché à ses compatriotes la politique d'égards vis-à-vis des in-
digènes.
Tolèrera-t-il qu'on la pratique à coups de pied et de poing ?
Quelle décision va-t-il prendre contre les coupables ?