La Tribune de Madagascar
- The Tangier question
- Colonial Union
- The community’s role
The Tangier commentary interprets Spain’s initiative as a diversion from domestic trouble, while describing its Moroccan commitments as costly and precarious. The Colonial Union section supports removing an import tax but rejects the proposed change to Madagascar’s export duties. The municipal essay advocates collective contracting for sanitation and roads, presenting specialized companies and fixed annual payments as advantages. The three selections expose the paper’s colonial assumptions alongside disputes over trade incentives and the financing of public services; proposed benefits remain the writers’ claims.
Translation
The Tangier question
The Spanish Directory has put the Tangier question on its agenda. We think it thereby sought a diversion from internal difficulties which the King’s intervention has temporarily calmed, but which may reappear in a country where dictatorship is not as firmly established as in Italy. Spain, occupying various points on Africa’s western Mediterranean coast since the 16th century, seems a prisoner of that past. Yet according to some newspapers of the peninsula, a year ago it was weary of spending so much money and losing so many lives to maintain a purely nominal, or at least precarious, domination in its allotted Moroccan zone.
Colonial Union
The chairman sums up the discussion and notes the section’s complete agreement. Its resolution will be sent to the Minister of Colonies and the Governor General of Madagascar. The section will also gladly join the hides-and-skins association’s efforts to obtain abolition of the import tax, but it cannot support the modification that association seeks in the export duties collected in Madagascar.
The community’s role
In our humble opinion, Madagascar’s municipalities would therefore have every interest in grouping together to entrust the study of sanitation and road works to large construction companies. These would undertake both execution and operation of major municipal works and services under a profit-sharing management arrangement. With their financial groups, the companies could grant towns extensive payment facilities; as municipal-service concessionaires for a fixed period, they offer highly specialized management and all the modern equipment needed for industrialized construction and operation. No more budget uncertainty once the agreement and annual payments are fixed; the commune would know its course better, without the crushing upkeep of equipment and personnel whose output does not always match the financial effort.
Context
Tangier at the entrance to the Mediterranean
Tangier’s strategic position made control of the city an international concern. A 1923 statute established an international regime there, so a Spanish initiative affected arrangements shared with other powers rather than merely an internal Moroccan question.
Importers and exporters do not share every interest
The section supports removing an import tax while opposing changes to Madagascar’s export duties. The distinction shows why a general call for lower trade taxes can conceal disagreement about which stage of commerce should bear the cost.
Pooling municipal works and spreading the payments
The proposal combines joint procurement, private operation and finance. Municipalities would exchange the burden of maintaining their own staff and equipment for contractual annual payments, while the contractor would supply expertise and capital over a fixed concession period.
Original
La question de Tanger
Le Direriolrc fsjwgnol a Inscrit la
question «le Tat per A-on ordre du jour.
Nous pensons qu'il a ainsi cherché
un dérivatif a des diilicultés d’ordre in
térieur «)ue l'intervention du Roi a apa
sées momentanément mais qui peuvent
surgir à nouveau dans un par* oft la
dictature ne s'est pas installée aussi
solidement qu>n Italie.
l.'Esnapne, occupant depuis le XVI*
siècle divers points de la « Ate africaine
de lYHicit-nu’dilcrraiiéen, eat,*erable-t-
il, prisonnière de ce passé. Opendaut,
ù en croire cottains journaux de la pé
ninsule. elle était h««e, voici mi un, «le
dépenser ta: t >!' rge .1 et de perdre tant
de vie» humaines pour maintenir, dans
la *onc marocaine qui lui e«t attribuée,
line domination purement nominale ou
tout au moins as«et précaire.
Union Coloniale
M. le èresideut résume la discussion. Il
conMs e l'entière unité de vues de la Section.
La délibération sera adresaée 4 M. le Ministre
des Colonies ainsi qu’au i.ouverDeiir bénéral
de Madagascar. Par ailleurs, la Section joindra
volontiers «es elfor;s 4 ceux du Syndicat des
cuir* et peaux pour arriver 4 la suppression de
la luxe 4 l'importation, mais elle i e saurait se
piet.r à la modification qu'il demande des
droits de sorlie perçus à Madagascar.
Le Rôle de la Collectivité
C'est pourquoi, 4 notre humble avis, les mu-
nicipulilea m idécaa-cs auraieal le plut grand
ini. r4t 4 sa grouper pour confier l'étnda d«
leurs travaux d’assainisscnjsol et de Voirie a
de grosse» sociétés de construction qui uechar-
rer uent.non seulement de l'exécution, mars ><«
'exploitation en régie intéressée des grand i
travaux et services innnicipaux.
Ces sociétés,gréce à leurs groupes floancier*.
peuvent accorder aux villes toutes les facilites
de ptiemeot las plus largos ; conceasinnosi
res des services municipaux pour uoc pério o
déterminée, elles offrent l'avantage d’on p» ■ -
sonnel de direction éminemment spécialisé ,
elles possèdent tout le matériel moderne ne-
cessiire 4 l'exécution et 4 l'exploitation indus
trialisé de» travaux et de» servicu».
Plus d'aléa budgetaire, une fois la conven
tion établie et les annuités arrêtées; la com
mune sait d'autant mieux où elle va qu’tlio
n a plu* i assumer, l'entretien écrasant d'un
matériel et d’un persounel dont le rendement
n’a-t pas toujours en rapport avec Feffoit
floancier accompli.