Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/941

 COGfflN-CHINA — TONKIN G 819

for the civil list of the king and princes. The chief cultures are rice, betel, tobacco, indigo, sugar tree, and silk tree, pepper, maize, cinnamon, coffee. Pepper is grown by 61 villages with 4,780 planters, the production being 750,000 kilogrammes annually. Cotton growing is extending ; the produc- tion is estimated at 9,000 tons, the whole of which is exported. Salt is worked. There are important factories at Khsach-Kandal, near Pnom-Penh, for the shelling of cotton seeds. The external trade is carried on mostly through Saigon in Cochin-China. The imports comprise salt, wine, textiles, arms ; the exports comprise salt fish, cotton, tobacco, rice, also boats.

Cochin-China.

The area of French Cochin-China is estimated at 20,000 square miles. The whole is divided into 21 provinces. The towns of Saigon and Cholon have been formed into municipalities. The Colonial Council contains 18 members. The colony is represented in France by one deputy. The population consists mainly of Annamites, Cambodians, Mois, Chams, Chinese, and a few Indians, Malays, Tagals, and foreigners. In 1911 the total population was put at 3,050,785, of whom 11,251 were Europeans (excluding the military forces). In 1911 there were 325 births among the white and 105,012 among the coloured population ; and of deaths, 177 among the former, and 79,785 among the latter. Saigon had, in 1911, a population of 64,845, of whom 2,939 were Europeans ; the town of Cholon has about 191,655 inhabitants. There are about 380 schools, with 800 teachers, and 19,000 pupils. In 1903 it was decided to found a school of medicine at Saigon. There are many establishments for medical aid.

The total area is put at 5,011,277 hectares (1 hectare = 2-47 acres) of which 1,522,666 hectares are cultivated, and 3,488,611 hectares uncultivated (1,748,694 hectares being forest). The chief culture is rice, to which 1,358,706 hectares are devoted. Other crops are maize, beans, sweet potatoes, earth- nuts, cotton, sugar-cane, tobacco, coffee, coco-nuts, betel-nuts, pepper, oranges, bananas, &c. The farm animals comprise 11,243 horses, 241,744 buflfaloes, 109,07) cattle, 709,380 pigs, 3,492 sheep and goats.

Extensive irrigation and drainage works are in progress in the central and south-Avestern provinces. River and coast fishing is actively carried on ; there are about 73,520 boats on the rivers, and 3,000 on the coast ; the fishery products are valued at 2,800,000 francs yearly. There are 9 rice mills in Saigon and Cholon, turning out each from 450 to 900 tons a day. In these towns are also 2 saw-mills, 2 soap factories, and a varnish factory. Commerce is mostly in the [hands of Europeans and Chinese, but about 22,000 Annamites are small traders. The chief exports are rice, fish and fish oil, pepper, cotton, copra, silk, shrimps, isinglass, hides, cardamoms. 756 vessels of 1,549,962 metric tons entered at the ports of the colony in 1908. The Messageries vessels, the steamers of the French National Company, of the Messageries Fluviales, of the Chargeurs Reunis, of the British P. and O. Company, and of the Norddeutscher Lloyd visit Saigon regularly. (For railways see Indo-China.) At Saigon there are 5 banks or bank-agencies.

Tonking".

This territory, annexed to Fiance in 1884, has an area of 46,400 square miles, and is divided into fourteen provinces, with 8,000 villages and a population in 1911 of 6,119,720, of whom 6,132 were Europeans (exclusive Ox military forces), The King of Annam was formerly represented in louking by a viceroy, but, in July, 1897, he consented to the suppression

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