L’Écho annamite
- The lessons of a ballot
- Yesterday's lecture at the Association of Annamite Industrialists and Merchants
- Notice to our readers in the interior
This front page of L'Écho annamite, a French-language Saigon paper, opened with a signed column by E. Dejean de la Batie. He argued that colonial Cochinchina was built on inequality between conquerors and conquered, and pointed to a paradox: naturalized Annamites born in Cochinchina could opt to vote in the native electoral college, a right denied to French-born citizens and to naturalized people from other parts of the Indochinese Union. A news report described a packed evening lecture at the Association of Annamite Industrialists and Merchants. There Lê van Gông set out an economic development programme and a plan for a bank, and the audience, which included Bui Quang Chiêu, said it wanted a credit institution limited at first to simple advances. A short notice told provincial readers that a named collector would call to recover unpaid subscriptions, and invited them to ask him for proof of identity.
Translation
The lessons of a ballot
Equality is a very fine thing. It ought to be everywhere; it is found nowhere. Since perfection is not of this world, civilized states, or those that claim to be, try to come as close to it as they can by treating their nationals on a footing of at least nominal equality. That is to say, the rights and duties of citizens are governed by texts that are the same for all and are drafted so that citizens are equal to one another before the law. In the colonies, where there are conquerors and conquered, equality clearly does not exist between these different categories of individuals. In Cochinchina, things are better or worse, take your pick. Naturalized Annamites enjoy at least one advantage that French-born citizens, with whom they are supposed to be assimilated, do not enjoy. It is a paradox, but a real one. Naturalized Annamites who are natives of Cochinchina do in fact have the right to opt for the native electoral college, from which they are supposed to be detached because of their special status. That right is refused to French-born citizens and to naturalized persons from countries of the Union other than Cochinchina.
Yesterday's lecture at the Association of Annamite Industrialists and Merchants
As we had announced, M. Le van Gông last night presented, at the headquarters of the Association of Annamite Industrialists and Merchants, his programme for the economic development of our country and his plan to found a bank. The hall was packed to overflowing. In the audience were Maître Monin, the engineer Luu van Lang and Councillor Truong van Bên, along with merchants, industrialists, contractors and Annamite civil servants. M. Bui quang Chiêu, detained elsewhere, arrived only around the middle of the lecture. M. Lê van-Gông spoke in French, in a clear voice and with an impeccable accent, and was applauded several times by his enthusiastic listeners. After the lecture a friendly discussion took place on the founding and operation of the proposed bank. The discussion brought out a general wish to organize a credit institution that would confine itself, to begin with, to simple advance operations.
Notice to our readers in the interior
We have the honour to inform our readers in the interior that our collector, M. Nguyên chanh-Chiêu, has been charged with recovering the subscription payments still owed to us. We ask them kindly to give him a good reception and to settle the invoices he presents to them, which will bear the signature of our administrator. They are at liberty to require M. Nguyen-chanh-Chiêu to prove his identity.
Context
The columnist Eugène Dejean de la Batie
The column's author, Eugène Dejean de la Batie, was one of the radical journalists of 1920s Saigon. Historian Philippe Peycam's account, as summarized in a review, describes him as the illegitimate son of a French diplomat and a Vietnamese street vendor, who with Nguyễn An Ninh attacked the governor of Cochinchina, Maurice Cognacq, issue after issue. In March 1926, leaflets bearing the names of Dejean de la Batie and Nguyễn An Ninh circulated in Saigon, and on 24 March the colonial authorities arrested three journalists, these two among them. He also had a working tie to this paper: Nguyễn Phan Long, who founded L'Écho annamite in 1920, worked there with this Eurasian nationalist. Given his mixed parentage, the column's subject, the way colonial law sorted people by origin and status, was unlikely to be an abstract question for its author.
L'Écho annamite as a conciliatory reformist paper
L'Écho annamite was a French-language Saigon newspaper founded in 1920 by Nguyễn Phan Long with the support of the colonial government; Long was its main contributor and eventually became its director and sole proprietor. Like La Tribune indigène, it opposed various government policies but adopted a conciliatory rather than a confrontational stance, and it is described as a liberal paper. That positioning fits the column's method: Dejean de la Batie argues through irony about legal texts and voting rules rather than through calls to action. Long himself was deputy leader of the Constitutionalist Party led by Bui Quang Chiêu, which ties the paper to the reform-minded elite who appear in the lecture report on the same page.
The reform circle at Lê van Gông's bank lecture
The lecture report reads like a list of Saigon's Vietnamese reform circle. Bui Quang Chiêu, whose late arrival the paper records, was editor of La Tribune indigène and a proponent of moderate political reform; he led the Constitutionalist Party founded in 1923, of which L'Écho annamite's founder Nguyễn Phan Long was deputy leader. The "Maître Monin" in the audience was very probably Paul Monin, who in 1925 had founded the newspaper L'Indochine with André Malraux. The crowd of merchants, industrialists, contractors and officials reflected a Cochinchinese economy that had boomed after the First World War on the growth of the Asian rice trade. The report records Lê van Gông's plan and the audience's wish for a credit institution starting with simple advances; it does not show whether the bank was ever founded.
Cochinchina's Colonial Council and its electoral rules
The paradox in the column concerns the colony's electoral system. Cochinchina had an elected Colonial Council whose proceedings were published from 1880 to 1941, and the governor opened its ordinary sessions with a speech, as A. Tholance did on 6 October 1924. A collection of electoral legislation for French Cochinchina was published as early as 1881. Seats on the council mattered to the circle around this paper: Nguyễn Phan Long was himself elected a colonial councillor. The specific rules the column describes, a native electoral college separate from the French one, an option for naturalized Annamites born in Cochinchina to vote in the native college, and the denial of that option to French-born citizens and to naturalized people from elsewhere in the Indochinese Union, are the author's account of the system as it stood in 1926.
Original
Les enseignements d'un scrutin
L'égalité est une fort belle chose. Elle devrait être partout; elle ne se trouve nulle part. La perfection n'étant pas de ce monde, les Etats policés, ou prétendus tels, tâchent de s'en rapprocher le plus possible, en traitant leurs nationaux sur un pied d'égalité au moins nominale, c'est-à-dire que les droits et les devoirs des citoyens sont régis par des textes, les mêmes pour tous, conçus de telle façon qu ils sont égaux entre eux au regard de la loi. Dans les colonies, cù il y a des conquérants et des conqui [?], il est clair que l'égalité n'existe pas entre ces diverses catégories d'individus. En Cochinchine, il y a mieux ou pis - au choix. Les Annamites naturalisés jouissent au moins d'un avantage dont ne jouissent pas les Français de naissance auxquels ils sont censés être assimilés. Chose paradoxale, mais effective. Les Annamites naturalisés, natifs de Cochinchine, ont, en effet, le droit d'option pour le collège électoral indigène, duquel ils sont censés être détachés, en raison de leur statut spécial. Ce droit-là est refusé aux Français de naissance et aux naturalisés originaires des pays de l'Union autres que la Cochinchine.
La conférence d'hier à l'Association des Industriels et Commerçants annamites
Ainsi que nous l'avions annoncé, M. Le van Gông exposa, hier soir, au siège de l'Association des Industriels et Commerçants annamites, son programme de développement économique de notre pays et son projet de fondation d'une banque. La salle était archi-comble. Dans l'auditoire, on remarquait Me Monin, l'ingénieur Luu van Lang, le Conseiller Truong van Bên, des commerçants, des Industriels, des Entrepreneurs, des fonctionnaires annamites. M. Bui quang Chiêu, retenu, n'arriva que vers le milieu de la conférence. M. Lê van-Gông parla en français, d'une voix claire, d'un accent impeccable et se fit applaudir à plusieurs reprises par les auditeurs enthousiasmés. Une discussion amicale eut lieu après la conférence sur la fondation et le fonctionnement de la Banque projetée, discussion qui fit ressortir le désir général d'organiser un établissement de crédit qui se confinera, pour commencer, aux simples opérations d'avances.
Avis à nos lecteurs de l'intérieur
Nous avons l'honneur d'informer nos lecteurs de l'intérieur, que notre encaisseur, M. Nguyên chanh-Chiêu, est chargé de recouvrer les montants des abonnements qui nous restent dus. Nous les prions de vouloir bien lui réserver bon accueil et de s'acquitter des factures qu'il leur présentera, dûment revêtues de la signature de notre administrateur. Il leur est loisible d'exiger de M. Nguyen-chanh-Chiêu la justification de son identité.