ABSTRACT
In Indo-China France has experimented with many different systems of government. From the conquest of Cochin-China in 1862 to the formation of the Union of Indo-China in 1887, government policy, although primarily assimilationist, threatened to destroy the native administration and to replace it by a wholly French system of government. This was especially the case under the rule of Admirals Charner, Bonard and Lagrandiere, but when civil governors were first appointed in 1879 the earlier military regime was modified and more attention given to indigenous customs. In Cochin-China, Le Myre de Vilers formed a Conseil colonial to serve both French and native interests; in the dual protectorate of Annam-Tonkin, as it then was, Paul Bert set up a purely native body known as the Conseil de Notables. Neither of these measures proved successful, because of opposition from Frenchmen living in the colony and in France itself, to whom the associative principle or indirect rule was anathema. In the economic field, an ambitious public works programme could not be organized, owing partly to lack of co-operation between the newly acquired territories and partly to inadequate financial support from the mother country. The first of these difficulties led to the creation of a political union in 1887 between Annam, Tonkin, Cochin-China and Cambodia, which, however, in the early years proved to be only a nominal union since administrative policy remained under the control of France. Paul Doumer, Governor-General from 1897 to 1902, was the man destined to form a strongly unified country and at the same time to give financial stability, hitherto lacking in Indo-China.
