L’Écho annamite
- A Find by Mr. Léon Archimbaud
- News from Annam
- The Franco-German Rapprochement
This front page of L'Écho annamite led with a sarcastic signed column by Van-Anh. It seized on the call in Léon Archimbaud's Revue du Pacifique, backed by a speech of Governor-General Varenne, for a status between “subject” and “citizen” for Annamites, and answered that wartime sacrifice, taxes, loans and gifts for the franc had long since earned citizenship, while “subjects” could still be jailed for holding opinions or meetings. Short wire items followed on Lord d'Abernon leaving Berlin and on French gold and finance. A correspondent in Annam described a plan by the president of the Annam chamber to found a thrice-weekly quốc ngữ paper in Tourane, with funds and a printer ready but government approval in doubt. The page also reported Chancellor Marx's Essen speech defending the Thoiry negotiations despite anti-French incidents in the occupied Rhineland.
Translation
A Find by Mr. Léon Archimbaud
The doctrine of the happy medium.... A find by Mr. Léon Archimbaud. The Annamites raised to the dignity of citizen-subjects (?!)
Decidedly, reading the Revue du Pacifique is full of surprises. If Mr. Archimbaud is to be believed, there are in France a good many people who are still unaware of progress, in particular the progress of peoples. He can find no other explanation for the stir caused in that reactionary milieu (and the word is apt) by Mr. Varenne's speech at the session of the Government Council of 21 December 1925. Just listen to him: “As for the French who take alarm too quickly, there are some among them who do not notice that time is passing, that we are no longer in 1895 but in 1926, who do not know that peoples progress and that a great many things have happened in thirty years. They must be taught it.”
That is a hardly flattering observation for a people that prides itself on being the torch of civilization!
Let us see what has happened in thirty years. “What has happened, notably, is the war, which found an Indochina not only calm but helping the endangered mother country with all its might, remaining deaf to the voice of the rebel Emperor of Annam and sending us its men, its products, its money.”
This proof of our loyalty was nevertheless judged, in high places, insufficient to justify granting the rights we claim. The late Mr. Maurice Long put us through a counter-test: the local loan of 6 million piastres. “All of Indochina,” says Mr. Archimbaud, “showed by its eagerness its firm resolve to collaborate closely with France.” One may add that our loyalty has recently undergone new tests and counter-tests: the voluntary contributions for the recovery of the franc and the loan of 2 million piastres.
Is it fair, under these conditions, that the Annamite people should live under the same regime as at the time of the conquest? We leave it to the Director of the Revue du Pacifique to answer: “It is not fair that the native should live today under the same status as at the beginning of the conquest, and an intermediate state must be found between that of ‘subject’ and that of ‘citizen.’ There are rights that can no longer be refused to the natives.”
Hard to please indeed will be those who find fault with that! At last! A little more justice is going to be granted to us!
But the problem that Mr. Archimbaud puts to those who have the good fortune to preside over the destinies of Indochina is worth our taking the trouble to look for a solution of our own.
What must one do to aspire to the title of citizen? Going back in memory over the lessons in morals and civics that we droned through so many times at school, we believe we know that the first of a citizen's duties is to sacrifice his life when his country in danger asks it of him. Here is a particular circumstance that singularly heightens the luster of this duty: shedding one's blood, for four years, to defend a people that shed yours at Tourane and elsewhere! Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that magnanimous?
One is a citizen when one sweats blood and water to feed 7/10 of the various budgets, which then evaporate into salaries and allowances of every kind that the sacrosanct French Administration grants, in its maternal solicitude, to its own children. As for its adopted children, the Annamites, they can make do with the bones and the skin! Well, they are not hard to please: a bowl of rice seasoned with a little nuoc-mam is enough for them!
When else does one act as a citizen? Surely when one sends one's piastres flying to the rescue of the ailing franc.
Let us now examine, quickly, some of the duties incumbent on the subject. There is no need to go back over the history of slavery in antiquity and in modern times to know them. A good subject does not allow himself opinions of his own. When he has the misfortune to have some, he deserves on that account a correction, in this case the handcuffs, the criminal court, the central prison. Harmless, isn't it? Just think! Becoming a “guest of the State” for having dared to concern oneself with the affairs of one's country! As a good subject, one must not hold meetings either. For one is always inclined to utter there truths too ticklish for the delicate skin of one's masters, if one is not plotting there some prank that might disturb their sleep of the just.
There is the problem solved, we believe. Come now! Annamites, give thanks to Mr. Archimbaud and to his excellent colleague Varenne, your Governor-General, to whom you owe being today “citizen-subjects”!
By the way, since the latter is on his way to France, why not wish him a speedy return with a happier solution to this problem, which has already made much ink flow, after he has re-tempered, at the best sources, his socialism, so terribly blunted by the escapement stone of the colonial clique?
VAN-ANH.
Lord Abernon has left Berlin
Lord d'Abernon has left for Rome. Marshal Hindenburg gave a farewell dinner for Lord Abernon, Ambassador of Great Britain, who presented his letters of recall to him and left his post on Sunday.
The French financial problem
Starting today the Banque de France, in view of the extremely variable price of silver metal, will buy back only gold coins, at the price of 19 francs 55 centimes per gram. During the week the Bank of England sold gold bars worth 1,654,000 pounds sterling, which the Reichsbank bought almost entirely. The Observer underlines the improvement in France's financial situation, marked by numerous returns of exported capital.
News from Annam
…council of the Comat and the Mandarins of the Court.
News from Annam
(From our special correspondent)
The creation of an Annamite newspaper in Annam? The question deserves some attention. Here at last is the initiative put forward by a group of Annamites of the Center. The future newspaper (if indeed it ever sees the light of day) would have its seat in Tourane. Appearing three times a week, it would be written in quốc ngữ and would include from time to time texts in French and in characters. The founder would be Mr. Hoàng thuc Khan, President of the Annamite Duma, who would at the same time be Director and Editor-in-Chief. Already a sum of 3,000 p. has been raised in the form of shares of 100 p. each, and the cooperation of a printing house in Tourane has been secured. So everything has been planned to arrange the coming into the world of the darling child; all that is awaited before launching it is the Government's decision; but will it be favorable to us? Or will this latest attempt suffer the fate of the previous ones? That is the question! Let us hope in any case that we will not have to mourn this fourth stillborn.
HUONG-GIANG
The Franco-German rapprochement
A speech by Chancellor Marx
The Franco-German Rapprochement
…of the previous ones? That is the question! Let us hope in any case that we will not have to mourn this fourth stillborn.
HUONG-GIANG
The Franco-German rapprochement
A speech by Chancellor Marx
Delivering a speech in Essen, Chancellor Marx expressed his conviction that the Iron Cartel will bring about a political détente and that the questions pending between France and Germany will be settled satisfactorily, for on both sides one sees a firm will to reach a solution. He declared that the recent incidents in the occupied territories must not diminish the goal set for the Thoiry negotiations. Chancellor Marx, as the man responsible for the directions of German policy, will strive, despite these regrettable incidents, to pursue the settlement of Franco-German questions.
After the anti-French demonstrations in the Rhineland
According to the Journal's correspondent in Mainz, the military authority will take energetic measures of repression and surveillance because of the recent assaults on French people; it is considering collaboration between the German and French police and has ordered frequent patrols in each occupied town, of which some…
Context
Alexandre Varenne, the socialist governor-general behind the “citizen-subject” idea
Van-Anh's second target after Archimbaud is Alexandre Varenne, a French politician and journalist who served as Governor-General of French Indochina from 1925 to 1928 and whom Wikipedia lists among politicians of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). That party identity gives the column's closing barb its point: the writer hopes Varenne will return from France with his “terribly blunted” socialism re-tempered, implying that the colonial clique had worn down a reformer of the left. The wording of Varenne's speech of 21 December 1925 and of Archimbaud's proposal for a status between “subject” and “citizen” is known here only through the column's quotations. The column's remark that Varenne was on his way to France matches a Vietnamese account published in 2021, which says that in winter 1926 Varenne returned to France and Pierre Pasquier, the Résident supérieur of Annam, was raised to acting governor-general. That account, written from a Vietnamese nationalist standpoint, calls Varenne's line demagogic and says Pasquier replaced it with a tighter policy of suppression. This later judgment echoes the column's suspicion that the promised intermediate status would change little.
Huỳnh Thúc Kháng, the “Hoàng thuc Khan” of the Annam report
The founder whom the correspondent calls “Mr. Hoàng thuc Khan, President of the Annamite Duma” corresponds to Huỳnh Thúc Kháng, who was elected to the House of Representatives of the French protectorate of Annam and served as its president from 1926 to 1928. He was a scholar of high standing who had topped the imperial examinations in 1900, and Wikipedia states that the French colonial authority imprisoned him on Côn Đảo from 1908 to 1919; the 2021 Vietnamese account instead dates his release to 1921. The same account describes the people's representative chambers of Tonkin and Annam as a creation of French “demagogic” policy and records that Huỳnh was elected head of the Annam chamber. A former political prisoner presiding over the new chamber and now seeking to found his own newspaper helps explain why the correspondent was so unsure that the government would allow it.
What became of the planned Tourane newspaper
Huỳnh's newspaper did appear, in 1927 and in Huế rather than in Tourane as the correspondent reported. According to the Vietnamese account, the backers formed a société en commandite par actions to publish it. When the acting Résident supérieur, d'Elloy, learned that Huỳnh intended to launch a paper, he sent a circular in November 1926 to all members of the Annam chamber; Huỳnh protested, and the account reports that d'Elloy was recalled to France. By February 1927 the company had gathered more than 30,000 đồng in shares, far above the 3,000 piastres mentioned in this October 1926 report. After a shareholders' meeting the paper, Tiếng Dân, came out in July, and Wikipedia confirms that Huỳnh founded the Huế-based Tiếng Dân in 1927 and that the colonial authority shut it down in 1943. Đào Duy Anh, one of its founders, remembered it as the first newspaper of Trung Kỳ. That memory fits the correspondent's dread of a “fourth stillborn”, while the three earlier failed attempts remain the paper's own claim.
The Thoiry talks and Chancellor Marx in autumn 1926
The Thoiry negotiations that Marx invoked at Essen had taken place only weeks before. Germany was admitted to the League of Nations on 10 September 1926, and on 17 September Stresemann and Briand met in the French village of Thoiry. There Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc, while Briand agreed to return the Saar early and to bring an early end to military control and occupation of the Rhineland; objections from both governments soon reduced the scope of these resolutions. The franc pledge links the Marx report with the same page's item on the French financial problem and with the column's mention of contributions for the franc, and the promised end of the occupation explains why assaults on French people in the Rhineland threatened the talks. Marx had been appointed chancellor on 17 May 1926 on Stresemann's suggestion, had served earlier that year as Minister for the Occupied Territories, and had opposed Rhineland separatism in 1918. He did not stay in office long after the speech: he resigned on 17 December 1926 after losing a no-confidence vote initiated by the SPD.
Original
Une trouvaille de M. Léon Archimbaud
La doctrine du juste milieu.... Une trouvaille de M. Léon Archimbaud Les Annamites élevés à la dignité de citoyens-sujets (?!) Décidément, la lecture de la Revue du Pacifique est féconde en surprises. A en croire M. Archimbaud, il y a en France bon nombre de gens qui ignorent encore le progrès, en particulier celui des peuples. Il ne s'explique pas autrement l'émotion provoquée dans ce milieu réactionnaire, c'est le cas de le dire, par le discours de M. Varenne à la session du Conseil de Gouvernement du 21 décembre 1925. Ecoutez-le plutôt: «Quant aux Français qui s'alarment trop rapidement, il en est parmi eux qui ne s'aperçoivent pas que le temps s'écoule, que nous ne sommes plus en 1895, mais en 1926, qui ignorent que les peuples progressent et qu'il s'est passé bien des choses depuis trente ans. Il faut le leur apprendre». Voilà une constation peu flatteuse pour un peuple qui se pique d'être le flambeau de la civilisation! Voyons ce qui s'est passé depuis trente ans. «Il s'est passé notamment la guerre, qui a trouvé une Indochine non seulement calme, mais secourant de toutes ses forces la métropole en danger, demeurant sourde à la voix de l'Empereur d'Annam rebelle et nous envoyant ses hommes, ses produits, son argent». Cette preuve de notre loyalisme a été jugée, cependant, en haut lieu, insuffisante pour justifier l'octroi des droits auxquels nous prétendons. Feu M. Maurice Long nous a fait subir une contre-épreuve: l'emprunt local de 6 millions de piastres. «L'Indochine entière manifesta, dit M. Archimbaud, par son empressement, sa volonté bien arrêtée de collaborer intimement avec la France». On peut ajouter que notre loyalisme a subi récemment de nouvelles épreuves et contre-épreuves: les contributions volontaires pour le relèvement du franc et l'emprunt de 2 millions de piastres. Est-il juste, dans ces conditions, que le peuple annamite vive sous le même régime qu'au temps de la conquête? Nous laissons au Directeur de la Revue du Pacifique le soin de répondre: «Il n'est pas juste que l'indigène vive aujourd'hui sous le même statut qu'au début de la conquête et il faut trouver un état intermédiaire entre celui de «sujet» et celui de «citoyen». Il est des droits qu'on ne peut refuser plus longtemps aux indigènes.» Bien difficiles seront ceux qui y trouveront à redire! Enfin! un peu plus de justice va nous être accordée! Mais le problème que pose M. Archimbaud à ceux à qui échoient l'heureuse fortune de présider aux destinées de l'Indochine, vaut que nous nous donnions la peine d'en chercher, de notre côté, la solution. Que faut-il faire pour aspirer au titre de citoyen? En repassant de mémoire les leçons de morale et d'instruction civique que nous avons tant de fois ânonnées à l'école, nous croyons savoir que le premier des devoirs du citoyen est de faire le sacrifice de sa vie quand sa patrie en danger la lui demande. Voici une circonstance particulière qui rehausse singulièrement l'éclat de ce devoir: verser son sang, pendant quatre ans, pour défendre un peuple qui a versé le vôtre à Tourane et ailleurs! N'est-ce pas que c'est beau? que c'est magnanime? On est citoyen quand on sue sang et eau pour alimenter les 7 / 10 des divers budgets qui s'évaporent ensuite en soldes et indemnités de toutes sortes que la sacro-sainte Administration française octroie, dans sa sollicitude maternelle, à ses propres enfants. Quant à ses enfants adoptifs, les Annamites, ils peuvent se contenter des os et de la peau! Dame! ils ne sont pas difficiles: une bolée de riz assaisonnée d'un peu de nuoc-mam leur suffit! Quand fait-on encore œuvre de citoyen? Sûrement quand on fait voler ses Piastres à tire-d'aile au secours du Franc malade. Examinons maintenant, rapidement, quelques devoirs qui incombent au sujet. Point n'est besoin de repasser l'histoire de l'esclavage dans l'antiquité et dans les temps modernes pour les connaître. Un bon sujet ne se permet pas d'avoir des opinions à lui. Quand il a le malheur d'en avoir, il mérite, de ce chef, une correction, en l'espèce, la menotte, la correctionnelle, la maison centrale. Elle est anodine, n'est-ce pas? Pensez donc! devenir «pensionnaire de l'Etat» pour avoir osé s'occuper des affaires de son pays! En bon sujet, on ne doit pas non plus tenir des réunions. Car on est toujours enclin à y débiter des vérités trop chatouilleuses pour l'épiderme délicat de ses maîtres, si on n'y médite pas quelque farce qui pourrait troubler leur sommeil de juste. Voilà le problème résolu, croyonsnous. Allons! Annamites, rendez grâces à M. Archimbaud et à son excellent collègue Varenne, votre Gouverneur Général, à qui vous devez d'être aujourd'hui des " citoyens-sujets "! Au fait, puisque ce dernier est en route pour la France, pourquoi ne pas lui souhaiter un prompt retour avec une solution plus heureuse de ce problème qui a fait couler déjà beaucoup d'encre, après avoir retrempé, aux meilleures sources, son socialisme terriblement émoussé par la pierre d'échappement de la clique coloniale? VAN-ANH. Lord Abernon a quitté Berlin Lord d'Abernon est parti pour Rome. Le Maréchal Hindemburg a offert un dîner d'adieu à Lord Abernon, Ambassadeur de Grande Bretagne, qui lui a présenté ses lettres de rappel et a quitté son poste Dimanche. Le problème financier français A partir d'aujourd'hui la Banque de France, vu les cours extrêmement variables du métal argent, rachètera seulement les monnaies en or au prix de 19 f 55 le gramme. La Banque d'Angleterre a vendu dans le courant de la semaine des lingots en or d'une valeur de 1. 654. 000 livres sterling que la Reichsbank a acheté presque totalement. L'Observer souligne l'amélioration de la situation financière de la France, marquée par de nombreux retours des capitaux exportés.
Nouvelles d'Annam
seil du Comat et les Mandarins de la Cour. Nouvelles d'Annam (De notre correspondant particulier) La création d'un organe annamite en Annam? La question vaut la peine qu'on s'y attarde. Voici enfin l'initiative présentée par un groupe d'Annamites du Centre. Le futur journal - si toutefois il voit le jour, - aurait son siège à Tourane. Paraissant trois fois par semaine, il serait rédigé en quôc-ngu et comporterait de temps à autre des textes en français et en caractères. Le fondateur serait M. Hoàng thuc Khan, Président de la Douma annamite, qui serait en même temps Directeur et Rédacteur en Chef. Déjà, une somme de 3. 000 p. a pu être réunie sous forme d'actions de 100 p. chacune et on s'est assuré du concours d'une Imprimerie à Tourane. Donc, tout a été prévu, pour régler la venue au monde de l'enfant chéri, on n'attend plus pour le lancer que la décision du Gouvernement; mais nous sera-t-elle favorable? ou bien cette dernière tentative subira-t-elle le sort des précédentes? That is the question! Souhaitons en tout cas que nous n'aurons pas à pleurer ce quatrième mortné. HUONG-GIANG Le rapprochement franco-allemand Un discours du chancelier Marx
Le rapprochement franco-allemand
des précédentes? That is the question! Souhaitons en tout cas que nous n'aurons pas à pleurer ce quatrième mortné. HUONG-GIANG Le rapprochement franco-allemand Un discours du chancelier Marx Prononçant un discours à Essen, le Chancelier Marx a exprimé sa conviction que le Cartel de fer amènera une détente politique et que les questions pendantes entre la France et l'Allemagne seront résolues de façon satisfaisante, car ont voit des deux côtées la ferme volonté d'arriver à une solu tion. Il a déclaré que les récents incidents des territoires occupés ne doivent pas diminuer, le but proposé aux négociations de Thoiry. Le Chancelier Marx, en qualité d'homme responsable des directives de la politique allemande s'efforcera, malgré ces incidents regrettables de poursuivre le règlement des questions Franco-Allemandes. Après les manifestations antifrançaises en Rhénanie Selon le correspondant du Journal à Mayence, l'autorité militaire prendra des mesures énergiques de repression et de surveillance en raison des agressions récentes contre les Français; elle envisage une collaboration entre les polices allemande et française et a prescrit de fréquents patrouilles dans chaque ville occupée, dont cer -