L’Écho annamite
- Letter to Paul Monet
- There is an Indochinese question
- The Lotus case
The open letter rejects petitioning the French for lost liberties and urges action while making harsh regional comparisons. The lecture report locates the colonial crisis in restrictions on public life, schooling and economic policy and proposes recognition of national aspirations. The Lotus dispatch separates the sentence from the unresolved jurisdictional question and preserves a later clarification of the penalties within the same page.
Translation
Letter to Paul Monet
Mr Duong-van-Loi was looking for the true purpose of colonization! I admire his innocence. But, if memory serves, even the most elementary geography books spell it out: there are two kinds of colonies, settlement colonies and colonies of exploitation. Given its climate, Indochina can obviously belong only to the latter.
You French would still be playing your part even if you imposed the Van-dell-Bosch system on us. Ours is to try to win back our lost liberties. How naïve to ask you to give them back! You would have to be saints, and you are only human!
If the Cochinchinese are as Mr Duong-van-Loi has portrayed them, let them show it in deeds, not petitions or insults. Let those who call themselves the most advanced remember that, without making so much noise, Tonkin and Annam have always known better than Cochinchina how to do their duty. Let them reread the history of the conquest and count this country's heroes on their fingers!
There is an Indochinese question
The present crisis
This lack of a rational policy lies at the root of the present crisis. After the upheaval in people's thinking and economic circumstances brought about by the war, the indigenous populations could no longer endure an oppressive administrative regime without protest.
Indochina has neither freedom of association nor freedom of assembly, except in Cochinchina. Freedom of the Vietnamese-language press is severely restricted by prior authorization and censorship. Labor legislation is not applied. Large numbers of indigenous schools are being closed and not replaced. The tax system consists chiefly of taxes and monopolies on goods in widespread consumption: the salt tax is a worthy counterpart to the opium and alcohol monopolies.
Against these conditions, national feeling, formed in 1428 when Annam threw off Chinese domination and never extinguished since, protests with growing vigor, often intensified by the contemptuous incomprehension of certain colonials.
The remedies
The crisis can be prevented from ending in revolution only by making room for national aspirations, respecting traditions and customs, and above all treating indigenous people as human beings.
We must forever renounce, our friend concludes, every method of domination unworthy of the French Republic.
The Lotus case
The experts' report in the Lotus case finds both commanders responsible, and the prosecution's closing submission finds them culpable.
The Constantinople court has sentenced Lieutenant Desmons, an officer of the Lotus, to 80 days in prison. He will nevertheless remain at liberty.
The Hague court will decide whether the Turkish court had the right to try the case.
* * *
The court sentenced both captains to one year in prison each, with mitigating circumstances reducing Lieutenant Desmons's sentence to 80 days and that of the Turkish officer to four months. Lieutenant Desmons will appeal.
Context
Why argue against colonial rule in French?
French gave Vietnamese writers access to both bilingual compatriots and French readers. Colonial education had helped spread the language, but it could also carry demands for emancipation. Addressing Paul Monet in French therefore put the argument before part of the society exercising colonial power, while opening a debate among Vietnamese readers about how freedom might be recovered.
Petition or self-reliance?
The letter and the lecture offer different ways of confronting colonial power. The letter treats economic exploitation as the system’s purpose and sees appeals to French generosity as misplaced. The lecture instead demands reforms in the name of the French Republic’s own principles. Their disagreement concerns the means of winning freedoms: action by the colonized themselves, or pressure to make the colonial administration honor the ideals it invokes.
Why taxes belonged in an argument about freedom
Salt, alcohol and opium appear beside censorship and restrictions on meetings because the lecture connects political exclusion with daily economic burdens. Taxes and monopolies on commonly purchased goods make colonial revenue a matter of household spending. The argument is that discontent comes from the way government both controls public discussion and finances itself, rather than from a single unpopular official.
Who could speak for the country?
The letter’s attack on Cochinchinese claims to be the most advanced turns a dispute over tactics into a contest over national leadership. Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina are compared by their resistance and heroes, not by wealth or education. That standard challenges the idea that social advancement alone gives one region the authority to lead the struggle for freedom.
National aspirations as an alternative to revolution
The lecture’s warning makes reform urgent: refusing national aspirations could produce the revolutionary outcome the administration fears. Its references to traditions, customs and 1428 give those aspirations a history predating French rule. Respecting them is presented as a condition for political stability, not merely a courteous concession by individual administrators.
How a collision became a dispute between states
The Lotus case arose from an August 1926 collision on the high seas between a French and a Turkish ship, in which eight Turkish nationals died. France disputed Turkey’s authority to prosecute a French officer. Thus the issue in The Hague was the reach of national criminal jurisdiction beyond territorial waters. In September 1927 the international court held that Turkey had not breached international law by bringing the proceedings.
Original
LETTRE A M. PAUL MONET
M. Duong-van-Loi cherchait le but
réel de la Colonisation ! J'admire sa
candeur. Mais, si j'ai bonne mémoire,
c'est écrit en toutes lettres daus les
géographies les plus élémentaires : Il
y a deux sortes de colonies : des colo -
nies de peuplement et des colonies
à exploitation. Llndochme, en raison
de son climat, ne peut, évidemment,
être classée que parmi ces dernières.
Vous, Français, neriez encore dans
votre rôle même si vous nous appli-
quiez le système Van-dell-Bosch. Le
nôtre est d'essayer de reconquérir nos
libertés perdues. Quelle naïveté que
de nous adresser à vous pour les ra-
voir ! Vous seriez des saints, et vous
n'êtes que des hommes ! -.
Si les Cochinclimois sont tels que
M. Duong-van-Loi les a dépeints, qu'ils
le montrent par des faits et non par
des suppliques ou des injures. Qu'ils se
souviennent, eux qui se prétendent
les plus avancés, que, pour n'avoir
pas fait tant de tapage, le Tonkin et
l'Annam ont toujours su, mieux que
la Cochinchine. remplir leur devoir.
Qu'ils rtlisent l'histoire de la Conquê-
te, qu'ils comptent sur leurs doigts
les héros de ce pays ! !
Il y a une question indochinoise
La orise actuelle
Cette absence de politique ration-
nelle est à l'origine de la crise actuelle.
Etant donné le bouleversement des
esprits et des conditions économiques
qu'entraîna la guerre, les populations
indigènes ne pouvaient plus supporter
sans protester un régime administra-
tif oppressif.
L'iridochine ne connaît ni la liber-
té d'association ni la liberté de réu-
nion (sauf en Cochinchine); la liber
té de la presse est très limitée, pour
la presse en langue annamite, par le
régime de l'autorisation préalable et
de la censure. La législation ouvrière
n'est pas appliquée. Les écoles indi-
gènes sont fermées en grand nombre,
et on ne les remplace pas. Le régime
fiscal est constitué essentiellement par
des taxes et des monopoles portant
sur des produits de grande consom-
mation: la gabelle y est le digne pen-
dant du monopole de l'opium et de
celui de l'alcool.
Contre ces faits, le sentiment natio-
nal, formé depuis 1428, date où l'An-
nam rejeta la domination chinoise, et
jamais disparu depuis, proteste avec
ure vigueur croissante, accrue bien
souvent par l'incompréhension mépri-
sante de certains coloniaux.
Les remèdes
On n'empêchera la crise d'avoir un
aboutissement révolutionnaire qu'en
faisant leur place aux aspirations na.
tionales, en respectant les traditions
et les mœurs, et surtout en traitant
les indigènes comme des hommes.
Il faut proscrire à jamais, conclut!
notre ami, tous les moyens de domi-
nation indignes de la République
f: ançaise.
L'affaire du « Lotus »
Le rapport des experts dans l'affaire
du Lotus conclut à la responsabilité
des deux commandants et le réquisi-
toire conclut à leur culpabilité.
Le tribunal de Constantinople a
condamné à 80 jours de prison, le
Lieutenant Desmons, officier du Lotus,
qui restera cependant libre.
La Cour de la Haye décidera si le
tribunal turc avait le droit de juger
l'affaire.
* +-
Le tribunal a condamné les deux
capitaines à un an de prison chacun
avec les circonstances atténuantes,
ramenant ainsi le peine du Lieutenant
Desmons à 80 jours et celle de l'of-
ficier turc à quatre mois ; le Lieutc
mant Desmons se pourvoiera en ap-
pel.