L’Écho annamite
- An Active Minority
- The Embassy of Phan Thanh Gian in 1863
- The Flood at Hue
This front page of L'Écho annamite for 28 October 1926 combined politics, history and local news. A column signed ALPHA traced the long Vietnamese campaign for press freedom: from the founding of the Tribune indigène about ten years earlier, through a Cahier des Vœux handed to Governor-General Alexandre Varenne in November 1925, to the same demand echoing at Saigon's Court of Appeal the previous March after meetings of the Jeune-Annam party. A second contributor introduced an official Annamite account of Phan Thanh Giản's audience at the Tuileries on 5 November 1863 and urged readers to consult Langlois and Seignobos's manual on historical method. A report from Huế described the flooded imperial capital as a busy, lively Venice and contrasted it with the ruin and death that floods brought to Tonkin.
This edition translates only passages from three articles: ALPHA's press-freedom column, the introduction to the Phan Thanh Giản embassy text, and part of the Huế flood report. Because the OCR was badly corrupted, these passages were transcribed from the page images. Words cut off at tile edges, including the right side of the Errata column and the right edges of the dispatch columns, were left out rather than guessed. The rest of the page, including the reproduced embassy account itself, is not covered.
Translation
An Active Minority
To hold forth on that modern vehicle of all propaganda, the press, would, we believe, be idle! Since the birth of the Tribune indigène, some ten years ago, campaigns have been waged to wrest this freedom. The Cahier des Vœux presented by an Annamite delegation in November 1925 to Governor-General Alexandre Varenne, likewise aimed, among other desiderata, at the same goal. What is more striking still is that last March, on the morrow of the meetings of the Jeune-Annam party, the same echo resounded as far as the Court of Appeal of Saigon.
The Embassy of Phan Thanh Gian in 1863
In reproducing below the part of the official Annamite account relating to the reception of Phan Thanh Gian's embassy in public audience at the Tuileries Palace on 5 November 1863, I think it worthwhile to point the reader to the Introduction aux études historiques by MM. Ch.-V. Langlois and Ch. Seignobos. There he will find the most lucid and practical information on historical method, on sources, and on how to put them to use.
The Flood at Hue
The next day Hue looked strangely like Venice. The dwellings, the buildings, the edifices now bathe their foundations in a liquid plain; the city's thoroughfares have become so many little rivers, and the crossroads and public squares veritable ponds of muddy, swirling water. And over all of it, an incessant coming and going. For it must be said that here floods do not present the same spectacle as in Tonkin: there, ruin, desolation, death; here, movement, animation, life. Same phenomenon, same spectacle, same cause, but not the same effects.
Context
From the Tribune indigène to L'Écho annamite
ALPHA dates the campaign for press freedom from the birth of the Tribune indigène "some ten years ago", and the newspaper printing the column grew out of that same milieu. Nguyễn Phan Long worked for La Tribune Indigène in 1917 and in 1920 founded the liberal newspaper L'Écho Annamite, so the 1917 date fits the column's rough reckoning. In the 1920s he was deputy leader of the Parti Constitutionnaliste Indochinois, a nationalist party founded in 1923 and led by Bùi Quang Chiêu, which other accounts describe as moderate-nationalist. The lineage ALPHA sketches, from the Tribune to the present campaign, is therefore the story this circle of moderate Cochinchinese journalists told about their own press.
Governor-General Varenne and the November 1925 petition
According to the column, an Annamite delegation handed Governor-General Alexandre Varenne a Cahier des Vœux in November 1925 that sought press freedom among other demands; the petition's content as summarised here is the column's account. Varenne was a French politician and journalist, best remembered as founder of the newspaper La Montagne, and he governed French Indochina from 1925 to 1928, so the petition reached him in the first year of his term. Why the press mattered so much is clear from the conditions of the time: the radical journalist Nguyễn An Ninh published his own paper in French because the government restricted printing in Vietnamese.
Saigon in March 1926
The column says that last March, after meetings of the Jeune-Annam party, the press-freedom demand echoed as far as Saigon's Court of Appeal. That month was tense in Saigon. Nguyễn An Ninh's paper La Cloche Fêlée had drawn thousands of young workers and students to demand freedom of press, education and assembly, and Ninh was arrested on 21 March 1926, the same day Bùi Quang Chiêu, leader of the moderate-nationalist Constitutionalist Party, returned from France. When Ninh's 18-month sentence was announced on 24 April 1926, students and schoolchildren in Saigon and the region deserted their classes en masse. The Jeune-Annam meetings and the scene at the Court of Appeal are reported here on the column's own authority.
Phan Thanh Giản's mission to Napoleon III
The contributor announces an official Annamite account of the embassy's public audience at the Tuileries on 5 November 1863. Phan Thanh Giản had played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Saigon with the French in 1862, which ceded southern provinces, and his 1863 mission sought to negotiate the return of those territories. His roughly 70-strong company met Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in November 1863. Napoleon III, moved by Phan Thanh Giản's plea, agreed to return the provinces in exchange for a war indemnity, but a ministerial threat of resignation, together with that of the whole cabinet, forced him to cancel the agreement in June 1864. Phan Thanh Giản took his own life in 1867 when France completed its conquest of southern Vietnam. The contributor's advice to read Langlois and Seignobos suggests that he wanted readers to treat the court's account critically as a historical source.
Why Huế floods: the Perfume River
The Huế report describes streets turned into rivers and squares into muddy ponds, and it contrasts the city's lively floods with the deadly ones of Tonkin. Huế sits on the Perfume River (Sông Hương), a river 30 km long that runs very slowly because its level is not much above sea level. A present-day description adds that the Perfume River basin has the highest rainfall in Vietnam. Heavy rain feeding a slow, low-lying river helps explain why water could stand in the city's streets. The comparison with Tonkin is the correspondent's own impression, and the report gives no figures for losses in either region.
Original
UNE MINORITÉ AGISSANTE
Epiloguer sur ce véhicule moderne de toute propagande, qui est la presse, serait, croyons-nous, oiseux! Depuis la naissance de la Tribune indigène, il y a quelque dix ans, des campagnes ont été menées aux fins d'arracher cette liberté. Le Cahier des Vœux présenté par une délégation annamite, en novembre 1925, à M. le Gouverneur général Alexandre Varenne, tendait également, entre autres désiderata, au même but. Ce qui est encore impressionnant, c'est qu'en mars dernier, au lendemain des meetings du parti Jeune-Annam, le même écho a retenti jusqu'à la Cour d'Appel de Saigon.
L'Ambassade de Phan-thanh-Gian en 1863
En reproduisant ci-dessous la partie de la relation officielle annamite relative à la réception de l'ambassade de Phan thanh Gian en audience publique au palais des Tuileries le 5 novembre 1863, je crois intéressant de signaler au lecteur l'Introduction aux études historiques de MM. Ch. - V. Langlois et Ch. Seignobos. Il y trouvera sur la méthode historique, sur les sources, sur la manière de les mettre en œuvre, les renseignements les plus lucides et les plus pratiques.
L'inondation à Huê
Le lendemain Hué ressemblait étrangement à Venise. Les habitations, les bâtiments, les édifices baignent maintenant leurs assises dans une plaine liquide; les artères de la ville sont devenues autant de petites rivières, et les carrefours, les places publiques, de véritables mares aux eaux bourbeuses et tourbillonnantes. Et sur tout cela, un va-et-vient incessant. Car il faut dire qu'ici, les inondations ne présentent pas le même spectacle qu'au Tonkin: là-bas, la ruine, la désolation, la mort; ici le mouvement, l'animation, la vie. Même phénomène, même spectacle, même cause, mais non pas mêmes effets.