La Tribune de Madagascar
- Foreigners and the Tax Authorities
- The Milk Question
- On the T.C.E.
This partial reading of La Tribune de Madagascar for 28 October 1926 covers three items. A column on foreigners and taxation reported that a deputy's bill answered earlier proposals: Falcoz and André Hesse wanted an entry tax scaled to the length of stay and payable in strong foreign currency, while Fongères wanted a 20-franc tax on every foreigner staying more than twenty days. An editorial on Tananarive's milk supply attacked the municipal administration for failing to inspect a food the paper called vital to infants and to colonials suffering from malaria, dysentery or liver disease. A short note passed on a friend's complaint that T.C.E. railway passengers had to check for themselves that their luggage was loaded, along with his suggestion that a bailiff be posted permanently at the terminus stations.
This is a partial reading of the page with three excerpts, transcribed from the page images because the OCR is badly corrupted. Text at the tile edges is cut off, especially in the 'A Tuléar' and 'L'Etat industriel ou Commerçant' columns and on the left edge of the Fontoynont columns, and the text below the cartoon is too faint to read. The opening of the foreigners-and-tax column, which names the original bill, is not part of the selected excerpt.
Translation
Foreigners and the Tax Authorities
We have just learned that this bill by the honourable parliamentarian was a response to two other proposals, one from Messrs. Falcoz and André Hesse and the other from M. Fongères, who for their part advocated applying a residence tax to foreigners. The first two asked that, from the moment of entering France, the foreigner be required to pay a tax proportionate to the length of his stay and payable in sound foreign currencies; the third asked that all foreigners staying in France for more than twenty days be charged a tax of 20 francs.
The Milk Question
Its consumption is universal. The question of the milk supply, in a city of 70,000 inhabitants, is a genuine social problem that ought to attract the concern of municipal administrators and hygienists. The Tananarive taxpayer, who pays heavy taxes all the same, finds himself here, as in many other matters, faced with the absolute failure of what—out of habit—we have agreed to call the Municipal Administration. There is no concern whatever for the constant inspection of a food whose poor quality has the gravest repercussions on the health of infants and on that of malaria sufferers and colonials afflicted with dysentery or liver ailments, for whom milk is not only a food but almost a medicine.
On the T.C.E.
A friend points out to us that T.C.E. passengers who wish to find their luggage on arrival will have to make sure for themselves, at departure, that it has actually been placed in the baggage van. He believes that, given the slipshod practices now prevailing, there ought to be—as is done in France and in certain other colonies—a bailiff permanently on duty at the terminus stations, so that all necessary official reports can be drawn up when the trains arrive.
Context
France had charged foreigners for residence papers since 1917
The article reports that Falcoz and André Hesse, and separately Fongères, had proposed a residence tax on foreigners: in the first case a charge levied at entry, scaled to the length of stay and paid in strong foreign currency, and in the second a flat 20 francs for anyone staying more than twenty days. The paper does not say what became of these proposals, and the available sources do not record their fate. The idea of making foreigners pay was already built into French administration. The Gisti review Plein Droit dates the general taxation of foreigners' residence in France to the introduction of the foreigner's identity card in 1917. The Nord departmental archives hold a circular of 26 April 1926 from the Minister of the Interior to the prefects about the fees foreigners paid for visas. The men named in the article were therefore proposing to add a new tax on top of charges that already existed, not to create the principle from scratch.
France's large foreign population in the mid-1920s
A tax on every foreigner staying more than twenty days, as Fongères proposed, would have reached far beyond tourists, because France housed a large settled foreign population in these years. The Nord departmental archives count 192,802 foreigners in that department alone, close to 10% of its population. The same account records that Poles, only 1,321 in 1921, had become a compact group of 49,581 people by 1926. The Falcoz–Hesse version, with its payment at entry in strong foreign currency, looks aimed more at visitors bringing money into France, while the flat 20-franc charge would also have fallen on immigrant workers of this kind.
The T.C.E.: Madagascar's mountain railway from the capital to the coast
T.C.E. is the abbreviation for the Tananarive–Côte Est railway, the metre-gauge line linking the colonial capital to the east coast. It runs 376 km from Antananarivo to Toamasina (Tamatave) via Moramanga and was completed in 1913; the coastal section between Brickaville and Toamasina was built between 1909 and 1913. L'Express de Madagascar counts 33 stations on the line and notes that the 27 km climb at Mandraka toward the Imerina highlands alone required 15 tunnels. The terminus stations mentioned by the paper's informant were therefore at the two ends of a long mountain line, where passengers arriving after a full journey had no easy way to contest missing luggage. The note gives no specific incidents, and the sources do not show whether a bailiff was ever stationed at these termini.
Tananarive's taxpayers and colonial bodies without real power
Tananarive had been the capital of Madagascar since before the conquest; Queen Ranavalona III was forced to surrender it to the French in September 1895. The editorial puts its population at 70,000 and complains that its heavily taxed residents get no inspection of their milk from the municipal administration. The colony offered limited channels for such grievances. In 1924 the administration created two economic and financial delegations, one made up of French settlers and the other of twenty-four Malagasy representatives, but the two never met together and neither had real decision-making authority. In that setting a newspaper editorial was likely one of the few ways a taxpayer could put pressure on local administrators. The sources available here do not show whether Tananarive introduced milk inspection rules after the campaign.
Original
Les étrangers et le fisc
Nous venons d'apprendre que ce projet de l'honorable parlementaire répondait à deux autres propositions émanant de MM. Falcoz et André Hesse, d'une part, Fongères, d'autre part qui, eux, préconisaient l'application aux étrangers d'une taxe de séjour. Les deux premiers demandaient que, dès son entrée en France, l'étranger dût acquitter une taxe proportionnée à la durée de son séjour et payable en devises étrangères appréciées; le troisième, que tous les étrangers séjournant en France plus de vingt jours, fussent frappés d'une taxe de 20 francs.
La question du lait
La consommation en est générale. La question de l'approvisionnement du lait, dans une ville de 70. 000 habitants, est un véritable problème social qui doit attirer la sollicitude des administrateurs municipaux et des hygiénistes. Le contribuable tananarivien, qui paie cependant de lourds impôts, se trouve là, comme en beaucoup d'autres matières, en présence d'une carence absolue de ce que-par habitude - nous sommes convenus d'appeler l'AAAdministration municipale. Aucun souci du contrôle constant d'un aliment dont la mauvaise qualité a les répercussions les plus graves sur la santé des enfants en bas âge et sur celle des paludéens, coloniaux atteints de dysenteries ou d'aftectations hépatiques, pour qui le lait est, non seulement un aliment, mais presque un médicament.
Au T. C. E.
Un ami nous signale que les voyageurs du T. C. E. qui désirent trouver leurs bagages à leur arrivée, devront s'assurer eux-mêmes, au départ, qu'ils ont bien été installés dans le fourgon. Il estime qu'en raison des errements en cours, il y aurait lieu d'assurer - ainsi que cela se fait en France et dans certaines autres colonies - la présence d'un huissier en permanence dans les gares terminus, afin de pouvoir assurer tous constats utiles lors de l'arrivée des convois.