ABSTRACT
One of the greatest mysteries in French colonization is the present undoubted leadership of Indo-China. Constant diplomatic issues arose with other Powers, and the rich deltas of Indo-China saw a continual infiltration of inimical elements from China and Siam. The organization of Indo-China is made anomalous by the position of Cochin-China as an assimilated colony, and the influence of the period before 1897 is continually cropping up: but, on the whole, Indo-China may be judged by the policy since Paul Doumer’s arrival in that year. Africa meant to France the triumph of annexationist ideas and the destruction of native kingdoms, whereas Indo-China, after the experiment of Cochin-China, came to stand for a Protectorate, with native institutions surviving as the means of government. The wider but illusory advantages of the South Chinese trade were thus cast aside for the more restricted but practical development of Indo-China itself.
