L’Écho d’Alger
- The 1927 Budget
- Algiers General Council
- The Wedding of the Sultan's Sons
This front page of L'Écho d'Alger set metropolitan finance beside Algerian local politics and Moroccan court ceremony. It printed Raymond Poincaré's letter to M. Simon, chairman of the Chamber's Finance Commission, about the government's amending proposals for the 1927 draft budget, which had to reflect administrative reforms enacted under the law of 3 August 1926. From the Algiers General Council it reported councillor Mourgues's complaint that the services in Algiers had no means to fight an anthrax outbreak among livestock in the Bouïra district, and the Prefect's reply that the Institut Pasteur d'Alger had already sent vaccine while serum was requested from Paris. From Morocco it described the wedding procession of the Sultan's sons, at which Resident-General Steeg, at the Sultan's request, decorated leading dignitaries including the pasha of Marrakesh, El Glaoui.
Translation
The 1927 Budget
Paris, October 28. — Here is the text of the letter that M. Poincaré has sent to M. Simon, chairman of the Finance Commission of the Chamber: “In your letter of October 25 you were good enough to draw my attention to the need to send you, at the earliest possible moment, the government's amending proposals concerning the draft budget for 1927, intended to reflect the effects of the administrative reforms enacted in execution of the law of August 3, 1926.
Algiers General Council
M. Mourgues reports that he has been informed that an epidemic of anthrax has struck the livestock in his constituency (Bouïra). He immediately inquired in Algiers about the measures to be taken to check this epidemic; but, to his great astonishment, he found all the services concerned absolutely unequipped to act. M. Mourgues asks the Prefect to intervene so that such a thing does not happen again, in view of the serious consequences it could entail. The Prefect states that as soon as he was informed of the situation reported by M. Mourgues, he conferred with the Institut Pasteur of Algiers, which sent vaccine as early as Wednesday evening. Serum has been urgently requested from Paris.
The Wedding of the Sultan's Sons
At 4:30 p.m. the procession entered the immense courtyard, headed by the Sultan's sons and accompanied by a countless throng of tribal horsemen. The princes, cheered by the native crowd, which was held back by a cordon of imperial guards in full dress, advanced up to the box where the Sultan sat, after passing in front of the tent where M. Steeg and his suite were. The Sultan conferred decorations, asking M. Steeg to pin the insignia on the chests of the newly promoted. The Resident then presented the cordon of the Grand Cross to the chamberlain Abadou, to the head of protocol Ben Ghabrit and to the pasha of Marrakesh, El Glaoui, and the insignia of Grand Officer to the caids Ayadi and Mtougui. After the ceremony, magnificent fantasias went on until nightfall.
Context
Poincaré's recovery government and the law of 3 August 1926
Poincaré wrote this letter about three months after returning to power. On 21 July 1926, at an impasse and with the pound at a record 235 francs, President Gaston Doumergue called on Raymond Poincaré to form a government, and on 3 August 1926 Poincaré had the Chamber of Deputies adopt a large package of fiscal measures in a single day. The letter on this page shows another side of the same law. Poincaré writes that administrative reforms had been 'enacted in execution of the law of 3 August 1926', and the government still had to write their financial effects into the draft budget for 1927. Simon's letter of 25 October, as Poincaré describes it, asked for these amending proposals as quickly as possible. The exchange shows the Chamber's Finance Commission pressing the government to put the cost of reforms adopted under the August law before Parliament in budget form.
The Institut Pasteur d'Alger and the anthrax outbreak
The institute the Prefect turned to was led in 1926 by Edmond Sergent. Sergent had studied microbiology in 1899 in Émile Roux's laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, then inaugurated a Pasteur Institute in Algiers, became its director in 1912 and remained in charge until 1963. In the second half of his career he worked not only on malaria but on many diseases of humans and other mammals, which made the institute the natural local resource when livestock fell sick. The article shows a division of tasks during this emergency: the Algiers institute sent vaccine by Wednesday evening, while the serum had to be requested urgently from Paris. Mourgues's complaint concerned the administrative services that should have organized a response, and the Prefect answered by pointing to the scientific institution's quick action.
Who controlled public spending in Algeria
In the early 1920s, Algeria's budget was shaped by local settler assemblies dominated by wealthy landowners, which controlled taxation and spending. Théodore Steeg inherited this system when he was appointed governor-general of Algeria on 28 July 1921, at a time when the colony was in crisis. These assemblies tended to favour spending that boosted the economy over spending on social projects. In this article an elected councillor, speaking for his own constituency, used the General Council to question the Prefect about why the services had no means to act against anthrax. The page does not say who was responsible for the gap. Given how budgets were decided, standing services for animal disease control may well have struggled to obtain funds even though livestock was an economic asset.
Steeg's place in the Sultan's ceremony
The report puts Théodore Steeg at the centre of a Moroccan royal occasion: the Sultan asked him to pin on the insignia, and the Resident himself handed over the Grand Cross cordons. Steeg had replaced Lyautey as resident-general on 11 October 1925 with a mandate to restore peace and move from military to civilian government. In contrast to Lyautey, Steeg spent little time with the Sultan and other members of the Moroccan elite, so the scene reads best as protectorate protocol rather than as a sign of personal closeness. Among those decorated was the pasha of Marrakesh, Thami El Glaoui, whose ties to the court are shown by his gift of a slave concubine to the Sultan around 1924. The Sultan in this scene, Moulay Yusef, died suddenly in 1927, and Steeg's selection of the young Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef as his successor may have reflected a wish for an inexperienced ruler.
Original
Le Budget de 1927
Paris, 28 octobre. - Voici le texte de la lettre que M. Poincaré a adressée à M. Simon, président de la Commission des finances de la Chambre: «Vous avez bien voulu, par votre lettre du 25 octobre, appeler mon attention sur la nécessité de vous adresser, dans le plus bref délai, les propositions rectificatives du gouvernement relatives au projet de budget de 1927 et destinées à traduire les répercussions des réformes administratives édictées en exécution de la loi du 3 août 1926.
CONSEIL GÉNÉRAL D'ALGER
M. Mourgues fait connaître qu'il a été informé qu'une épidémie de charbon s'est abattue sur le bétail, dans sa circonscription (Bouïra). Il s'est enquis immédiatement, à Alger, des mesures à prendre pour enrayer cette épidémie; mais. à son grand étonnement, il a trouvé tous les services intéressés absolument désarmés. M. Mourgues prie M. le Préfet d'intervenir pour que pareille chose ne se reproduise plus, en raison des graves circonstances qu'elle pourrait entraîner. M. le Préfet déclare que dès qu'il a été mis au courant de la situation signalée par M. Mourgues, il a conféré avec l'Institut Pasteur d'Alger qui, dès mercredi soir, a envoyé du vaccin. Du sérum a été demandé d'urgence à Paris.
LE MARIAGE des fils du Sultan
A 16 heures 30, le cortège a pénétré dans l'immense cour ayant à sa tête les fils du sultan, accompagnés d'une foule innombrable de cavaliers des tribus. Les princes, acclamés par la foule indigène, contenue par: un cordon de gardes impériaux, en grande tenue, avancèrent jusque devant la loge où se tenait le Sultan, après avoir passé devant la tente où étaient M. Steeg et sa suite. Le Sultan a remis des décorations, demandant à M. Steeg de placer les insignes sur les poitrines des nouveaux promus. Le Résident a remis alors le cordon de la Grand-Croix au chambellan Abadou, au chef du protocole Ben Ghabrit, au pacha de Marrakech, El Glaoui, et les insignes de Grand-Officier aux caïds Ayadi et Mtougui. Après la cérémonie, de magnifiques fantasias continuèrent jusqu'à la nuit.