ABSTRACT
The premature emancipation of the Negroes in the sugar-colonies, without the slightest preparation, had failed, and, by failing, had discredited the idea of liberalism in native policy, for, in the fifties and sixties, the only conceivable liberalism was one of development along the lines of European democracy. The native policy of France had received a new meaning, a newer and more immediate significance, and a new orientation as regards its place in general policy. French native policy, therefore, remains at basis a tendency rather than an exclusive theory; although, since 1914, it has been far clearer and more unified and more definitely “native” than it had been heretofore. French policy, especially in the native field, has been the history of the conflict between these various tendencies: idealism freed the slaves in 1848 and later set up the policy of assimilation in all its branches.
