La Tribune de Madagascar
- Are We Going to Run Short of Paper?
- A Statement by M. Poincaré
- The Rogui's Justice
The 14 October 1926 front page of La Tribune de Madagascar, a Tananarive tri-weekly, opened with an editorial warning that France, and therefore its colonies, faced a paper shortage. It blamed a collapsing franc that made Swedish pulp and newsprint ruinous, and printed import figures rising from 18,581 tonnes in 1922 to 28,579 tonnes in 1925. A short dispatch reported that the National Union of Ex-Servicemen handed Poincaré a resolution against paying the Allies more than France would receive from Germany, and that Poincaré replied France would pay only according to its capacity. A column from Tananarive retold a mocking anecdote about Abd-el-Krim's justice in the Rif and described his anger at being sent into exile while his former emissaries waited in Morocco.
Translation
Are We Going to Run Short of Paper?
TRI-WEEKLY
Are We Going to Run Short of Paper?
Of all the crises of every kind that seem to be making a game of overwhelming us at the moment, the paper crisis is neither the least threatening nor the least serious.
Paper... Do you really grasp the role that paper plays in the daily life of our country?... Paper: it is the newspaper, it is the review, it is the magazine, it is the schoolboy's textbook, it is that same schoolboy's exercise book and the kitchen notebook, it is the book you read and the pamphlet, it is the accountant's ledger and the wrapping paper of the grocer's boy and the chemist's boy, the railway ticket, the parcel-post form, the letter envelope; it is the postcard, and the calendar, and the tear-off almanac, and the good-conduct card, and the handbill; it is an unheard-of tonnage of familiar objects, so familiar that we hardly pay them any attention, but which all of us, every one, use and abuse with the lavishness of billionaires, just as if it cost nothing at all.
Yet paper costs money. And a great deal of it. You notice it in the rising price of newspapers in France. And also in the rising price of books. And also in the stinginess with which shops measure out the wrapping for your purchases.
Now, paper is as indispensable to a nation as bread. And this is no paradox at all. Bread is material life. Paper is intellectual life. And if the first sustains the life of the body, the second, once printed, sustains the moral life of the country and also its standing abroad. For it is printing and printed paper that make up a nation's essential weapon of propaganda. Foreigners (the English, Germans, Italians, Americans) know this well, and they take particular care and energy over their publications meant to be read outside their own countries.
But now, according to the news brought by the last mail, paper looks likely to run short in France and, as a consequence, in the colonies.
To tell the truth, we in France have never had enough of the raw materials for making paper: wood or rags. We always had to turn to other countries, from which we bought paper pulp or paper. Only, in the past, our currency stood at parity with the currencies of the paper-producing countries. Today the gap is so wide that our purchases of paper pulp are quite simply ruinous, and the situation is becoming terribly worrying. Dear paper means a dear newspaper, a dear book, a dear exercise book, dear wrapping.
Our paper comes in increasing quantities from Sweden. A few figures gathered from an economic review will say more than words. Here is a table of paper imports from Sweden into France:
Years | Newsprint | Commercial paper | Total
1922 | 13,435 tonnes | 5,146 tonnes | 18,581 tonnes
1923 | 8,738 – | 5,353 – | 14,091 –
1924 | 12,337 – | 7,803 – | 20,140 –
1925 | 20,686 – | 7,893 – | 28,579 –
Have you noticed the rise? It is almost incredible.
You must not think that the expense comes from buying luxury papers, the ones used to make expensive works and fine editions. Proportionally, and this is a fact, luxury paper today costs less than coarse paper: it seems paradoxical, and yet it is so. Besides, in the enormous mass of paper used every day in France, expensive works make up a tiny minority. What counts is newsprint and wrapping paper.
Twenty thousand six hundred and eighty-six tonnes of newsprint and seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-three thousand tonnes of wrapping paper bought in Sweden and paid for in a currency now quoted at more than eleven times ours... It is staggering and dreadfully dangerous.
And yet we need paper, we need newspapers, we need…
A Statement by M. Poincaré
He need only want it, in this as in many other matters, for the press information bureau, well fed at last by departments that are negligent on this score rather than recalcitrant, to stop being a skeletal information bureau, to the despair of M. Coançon, gently harried by the newspapers.
What needed saying
A Statement by M. Poincaré
France. The President of the National Union of Ex-Servicemen yesterday handed M. Poincaré a resolution. It declared that ex-servicemen could not accept that victorious France should have to pay the allies, who shared in the advantages of the common victory without running the same risks, sums greater than those she will receive from Germany. It also protested against any mobilization of bonds resting on a transfer of claims that simple justice could not tolerate.
M. Poincaré, recalling his speeches at Saint-Germain and Bar-le-Duc, made it clear to the delegates that, although the American government had sent us its bill, the French debtor wished first to have it out with his creditor. France can pay, but only according to her capacities. The Government is unanimous on this [?]
The Rogui's Justice
TANANARIVE
THE ROGUI'S JUSTICE
With the fatalism peculiar to all those of his race, the former emir Abd-el-Krim was waiting in Fez for his coming departure for Réunion. According to Excelsior, he relieved the tedium of the capital by growing geraniums and roses.
On this subject, here is an amusing anecdote from the days when the Rogui dispensed justice under the palms and still presided, up in his mountains, over the djemaa, the assembly of notables.
One of those who came under his justice turned up and said to him: “Emir, I have lost my donkey, which was carrying my provisions. I would be grateful if you would have it found for me.”
“More serious problems occupy us at present, praise be to God!” replied Abd-el-Krim. “Still, I want to try to give you satisfaction.”
And, turning to the assembly, he asked: “Is there anyone among you who once did foolish things for a woman?”
Grave, harmoniously dignified in their brown djellabas, the notables remained silent. But a merchant who happened to be there, having come to sell wheat and rye, felt he had to cry out: “Why, me! Yes, me! I have done foolish things and ruined myself over women.”
Abd-el-Krim then turned to the Riffian and said to him, pointing at the merchant: “There you are, my friend: here is the donkey you lost.”
We wager that feminists, if by some exception there are any in Islam, are not grieving overmuch at the disappearance of the Rogui.
Let us add some information about the exile to Réunion. When he learned of his coming transfer to Madagascar, he could not stop fuming, and declared that, had he known, he would never have submitted. He had hoped to be sent to France, like Moulay Hafid, with a large subsidy. He claimed that if he was being shipped off to the depths of Imerina, it was to make him die. He wrote a long letter asking to be interned at least in Algeria, as a vanished queen had been.
Azerkane and Hitmi, two of Abd-el-Krim's emissaries at Oujda, live apart with their families in a small house in the casbah of Bou Djeloub. They accept their fate. These two will probably not go with the defeated sultan to Réunion. There is talk of sending them to Marrakesh under the supervision of the sumptuous pasha El Glaoui, where they would meet Sidi Rabo, who will probably leave the oasis of Sefrou for the palm grove of the capital of southern Morocco.
Context
Why the editorial blamed the exchange rate for dear paper
The editorial argues that France had never produced enough wood or rags for its own paper and had always bought pulp or paper abroad. In its view the new problem of 1926 was monetary: the Swedish currency in which newsprint was paid stood, it says, at more than eleven times the franc. That ratio is the paper's own claim. The weakness of the franc was tied in part to the unsettled war-debt question that also appears in the Poincaré item on the same page. While France's debt repayment remained unresolved, the United States quietly blocked private and public loans to France, and this added pressure on the franc. The table, taken from an unnamed economic review, shows Swedish imports rising from 18,581 tonnes in 1922 to 28,579 tonnes in 1925, with newsprint accounting for most of the increase. The editorial's own figures contain a slip. The table gives 7,893 tonnes of commercial paper for 1925, but the text turns this into “seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-three thousand tonnes” of wrapping paper, a figure a thousand times larger. For a colonial newspaper in Tananarive, the warning that a shortage in France would follow “to the colonies” was a concern about its own supply.
What the veterans were protesting: the Mellon-Bérenger debt settlement
The resolution handed to Poincaré was aimed at the Mellon-Bérenger agreement, signed on 29 April 1926, which fixed the amount and rate at which France would repay its wartime debt to the United States. During the negotiations the French had sought a clause tying their payments to the United States to the reparations they received from Germany, and the United States refused that link. Reaction in France was hostile, and 20,000 war veterans demonstrated in Paris against the agreement. The demand reported in this item, that victorious France should not pay its allies more than it would receive from Germany, restates from the veterans' side the very linkage that French negotiators had asked for and Washington had rejected. The resolution's sharper language about allies who shared the benefits of victory “without running the same risks” reflects the veterans' sense that France's losses in the war entitled it to better terms.
Poincaré's “capacity to pay” and the ratification of 1929
Poincaré told the delegates that France could pay, but only according to her capacities, and that the French debtor wished first to have it out with its creditor before settling the American bill. The phrase mattered because the American Debt Commission had already said that the settlement represented substantially France's capacity to pay. Both sides used the same yardstick and disagreed about what it meant. The agreement was still unratified in October 1926, so Poincaré's remark reads as the position of a government that had received the bill without accepting it. Ratification came only years later: in 1929 Poincaré threw all his effort into getting the agreement through parliament, and the Chamber of Deputies narrowly ratified it on 21 July 1929, by 300 votes to 292, after an all-night session.
Who the “Rogui” was and how his war ended
The man the paper calls the Rogui and the “former emir” is Abd el-Krim, who with his brother M'Hammad led a revolt by a coalition of Riffian tribes against the Spanish and French protectorates. In April 1925 he invaded French-occupied Morocco and got as far as Fez. Spain then allied with France against him, and a decisive campaign in 1925 led to his defeat by 1926. He surrendered to the French at his headquarters at Targuist on 26 May 1926, which explains why, at the time of this report, he was waiting in Fez under French control. The donkey anecdote follows a line credited to Excelsior but is given no source of its own, and the column closes it with a gibe at Islam and feminism; it is colonial-press entertainment rather than a documented episode. The “Azerkane” named at the end appears to be Mohammed Azarqan, who served as foreign minister of the Republic of the Rif.
Réunion, not Madagascar: what Abd el-Krim's exile turned out to be
The item, printed under a Tananarive heading, says Abd el-Krim raged at his “transfer to Madagascar” and feared being sent “to the depths of Imerina” to die, yet it also calls him “the exile to Réunion”; the report blends the two islands. The record shows that after his surrender he was exiled to Réunion, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, from 1926 to 1947. There he was given a comfortable estate and a generous annual subsidy, which is far from the death sentence the paper says he feared and closer to the subsidised treatment he reportedly wanted. His exile ended dramatically: in 1947, during a transfer, he slipped away from his French keepers and was escorted to Cairo by Moroccan nationalists.
Original
Allons-nous manquer de papier ?
TRI-HEBDOMADAIRE Allons-nous manquer de papier? Parmi toutes les crises de toutes natures qui semblent se faire un jeu de nous accabler en ce moment, la crise du papier n'est ni la moins menaçante, ni la moins grave. Le papier... Vous rendez-vous un compte exact du rôle que le papier joue dans l'existence quotidienne de notre pays?... Le papier: c'est le journal, c'est la revue, c'est le magazine, c'est le livre de travail de l'écolier, c'est le cahier du même écolier et celui de la cuisine, c'est le volume de lecture et la brochure, c'est le registre du comptable et le papier d'emballage du garçon épicier, du garçon pharmacien, le billet du chemin de fer, la feuille de colis postaux, l'enveloppe de lettres, c'est la carte postale, et le calendrier, et l'éphéméride, et le bon point, et le prospectus, c'est un tonnage inouï d'objets familiers, si familiers que nous n'y prêtons qu'à peine attention, mais que nous en usons et abusons tous tant que nous sommes, avec une prodigalité de milliardaires et tout comme si cela ne coûtait rien du tout. Or, cela coûte, le papier. Et fort cher. Vous vous en apercevez au prix montant des journaux, en France. Et aussi au prix montant des livres. Et aussi à la parcimonie avec laquelle les magasins vous mesurent l'emballage de vos achats. Or, le papier est aussi indispensable à une nation que le pain. Et ceci n'est point du tout un paradoxe. Le pain, c'est la vie matérielle. Le papier, c'est la vie intellectuelle. Et si le premier assure la vie du corps, le second assure, lorsqu'il est imprimé, la vie morale du pays et aussi sa situation vis-à-vis de l'étranger. Car c'est l'Imprimerie et le papier imprimé qui constituent l'arme de propagande essentielle d'une nation. Les étrangers, - Anglais, Allemands, Italiens, Américains, - le savent bien, qui soignent avec un goût et une activité particulière leurs publications destinées à être lues hors de chez eux. Mais voici, d'après les nouvelles du dernier courrier, que le papier semble vouloir manquer en France et, par voie de conséquence, aux colonies. A vrai dire, chez nous, en France, on n'a jamais possédé des matières à fabriquer le papier en tonnage suffisant: bois ou chiffons. Il fallut toujours avoir recours à l'étranger, auquel on acheta pâtes à papier ou papier. Seulement, jadis, notre monnaie se tenait vis-à-vis des monnaies des pays à papier sur un plan de parité Aujourd'hui, le décalage est tel que nos achats de pâtes à papier sont tout bonnement ruineux, et que la situation se fait terriblement inquiétante. Le papier cher, c'est le journal cher, le livre cher, le cahier cher, l'emballage cher. Notre papier vient en quantités croissantes de Suède. Quelques chiffres recueillis dans une revue économique en diront plus que des phrases. Voici un tableau des importations de papier de Suède en France: Années | Papier journal | Papier commercial | Total 1922 | 13. 435 tonnes | 5. 146 tonnes | 18. 581 tonnes 1923 | 8. 738 - | 5. 353 - | 14. 091 - 1924 | 12. 337 - | 7. 803 - | 20. 140 - 1925 | 20. 686 - | 7. 893 - | 28. 579 - Avez-vous noté la progression? Elle est quasi fantastique. Il ne faut pas croire que la dépense provient des achats de papiers de luxe par le moyen desquels on fabrique les ouvrages de haut prix, les éditions de choix. Proportionnellement, c'est un fait, le papier de luxe coûte aujourd'hui moins cher que le papier grossier: cela semble paradoxal, et cependant cela est. En outre, dans la masse énorme de papier qui est utilisée chaque jour en France, les ouvrages de haut prix constituent une infime minorité. Ce qui compte, c'est le papier-journal et le papier d'emballage. Vingt mille six cent quatre-vingt-six tonnes de papier-journal et sept mille huit cent quatre-vingt-treize mille tonnes de papier d'emballage acquis en Suède et payés en une monnaie qui cote en ce moment plus de onze fois la nôtre... Cela est formidable et affreusement dangereux. Cependant, il nous faut du papier, - il nous faut des journaux, - il nous
Une déclaration de M. Poincaré
Il n'a qu'à vouloir, en cela comme en beaucoup d'autres matières, pour que le bureau d'information de presse suralimenté, par les services plutôt négligents à ce point de vue que récalcitrants, ne soit plus, au désespoir de M. Coançon, harcelé en douceur par les journaux, un bureau d'information sque lettique. Ce qu'il fallait dire Une déclaration de M. Poincaré France. - Le Président de l'Union nationale des ex-combattants remit hier à M. Poincaré une résolution déclarant que les ex-combattants ne sauraient admettre que la France victorieuse doive payer aux alliés qui, sans courir les mêmes risques, participèrent aux avantages de la victoire commune, des sommes supérieures à celles qu'elle recevra de l'Allemagne, et protestant contre toute mobilisation d'obligations reposant sur une mutation de créances que la simple justice ne saurait tolérer. M. Poincaré, rappelant ses discours de Saint-Germain et de Bar-le-Duc, précisa aux délégués que, quoique le gouvernement américain nous ait envoyé sa facture, le débiteur français désirait s'expliquer préalablement avec son créancier. La France peut payer, seulement suivant ses capacités. Le Gouvernement est unanime sur ce [?]
La Justice du Rogui
TANANARIVE LA JUSTICE DU ROGUI Avec le fatalisme particulier à tous ceux de sa race, l'ancien émir Abd-el-Krim attendait à Fez son prochain départ pour la Réunion. Il se délassa des ennuis de la capitale en cultivant, dit Excelsior, des géraniums et des roses. A ce sujet, voici une anecdote amusante qui se rapporte aux temps où le Rogui rendait la justice sous les palmes et présidait encore dans ses montagnes la djémaa ou l'assemblée des notables. Un de ses justiciables qui survint alors, lui dit: «Emir, j'ai perdu mon âne qui portait mes provisions. Je te serais reconnaissant de me le faire retrouver. - Des problèmes plus sérieux nous occupent actuellement, louange à Dieu! répondit Abdel-Krim. Cependant, je veux essayer de te donner satisfaction.» Et, s'adressant à l'assemblée, il demanda: - Est-ce qu'il y a parmi vous quelqu'un qui, un jour, ait fait des folies pour une femme?» Graves, dignes harmonieusement dans leur djellab brune, les notables demeurèrent silencieux.» Mais un marchand qui, par hasard, se trouvait là, étant venu vendre du blé et du seigle, crut devoir s'écrier: - Mais moi! oui, moi! j'ai fait des folies et je me suis ruiné pour des femmes. Abd-el-Krim se tourna alors vers le Riffain et lui dit, en désignant le marchand: - Tiens! mon ami, voici l'âne que tu as perdu» Gageons que les féministes, si par exception il en existe en Islam, ne doivent pas déplorer outre mesure la disparition du Rogui. Ajoutons quelques renseignements sur l'exilé à la Réunion. Lorsqu'il a appris son prochain transfert à Madagascar, il ne décolera pas, et déclara que, s'il avait su, il n'aurait jamais fait sa soumission; il espérait être envoyé, comme Moulay Hafid, avec une forte subvention, en France; il prétendait que si on l'expédiait au fond de l'Imerina, c'était pour le faire mourir. Il rédigea une longue lettre demandant son internement tout au moins en Algérie, comme le fut une reine disparue. Azerkane et Hitmi - deux émissaires d'Abdel-Krim à Oudjda - vivent à part avec leur famille, dans une petite maison de la casbah de Bou Djeloub. Ils acceptent leur sort. Ceuxci n'accompagneront probablement pas le sultan vaincu à la Réunion. On parle de les envoyer sous la surveillance du fastueux pacha El Glaoui, à Marrakech, où ils se rencontreraient avec Sidi Rabo, qui va probablement quitter l'oasis de Sefrou pour la palmeraie de la capitale du sud marocain.