ABSTRACT
The instance of Madagascar is especially instructive in the history of French colonization, because the French were dealing there with a very involved problem, and because the solution was astonishingly successful. Madagascar was thus a laboratory of research in native policy, the lesson being the more striking because it was so opposed to the conventional French theory of rule. The Hova control was more important than its area indicated, and explained why Madagascar, to all intents and purposes, meant Emyrna,—the Hova Kingdom. Madagascar had been linked with French claims for a long time, in the same vague way as the Senegal or the Congo coast. In March, 1881, a code was promulgated in Madagascar, and said in the famous “Law 85” that no foreigner was to own land in the country. This at once gave France a casus belli, for a treaty of 1868 had definitely conceded this right to Frenchmen.
