Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/942

 820 FRANCE : — COCHIN-CHINA — TONKING

of the viceroyalty and the creation of a French residency in its place. Chief town Hanoi, an agglomeration of many villages, with a population of 136,676 in 1911. This town became on January 1, 1902, the capital of Indo-China, instead of Saigon. There are 38 schools. In 1902 a school of medicine for natives was opened at Hanoi. The chief crop is rice, exported mostly to Hong-Kong ; other products are sugar-cane, silk, carda- moms, cotton, coffee, various fruit trees, and tobacco. About 500,000 kilo- grammes of raw silk are produced annually, of which 300,000 kilogrammes are used in native weaving and the remainder exported. At Haiphong is a cotton mill with 25,000 spindles. At Hanoi there is another with 10,000 spindles. The chief industries are silk, cotton, sugar, pepper, and oils. Chief imports are metals and metal tools and machinery, yarn and tissues, beverages ; chief exports rice and animal products. The principal port is Haiphong, Avhich is visited regularly by the steamers of two French lines. In 1908, 1,254 vessels of 398,979 metric tons entered at the ports of the colony. The transit trade to and from Lungchau and Mengtze is small.

The Laos ten-itory, under French protectorate since 1893, is estimated to contain 98,000 square miles, and in 1911 there were 640,877 inhabitants. The capital is Yien-tiane. In the country there are three protected states, Luang Prabang, which has a capital of the same name, the residence of the King, who is assisted in his government by a French Administrator ; the other protected states are Bassac and Muong Sing. The soil is fertile, producing rice, cotton, indigo, tobacco and fruits, and bearing teak forests, from which the logs are now floated down the Mekong to Saigon. Gold, tin, lead and precious stones are found, and concessions have been granted to several French mining companies. But there arc serious difficulties with the natives and for commercial purposes the country is almost inaccessible. It can be entered only by the Me-kong, which is barred at Khoae by rapids. A railway, i'our miles in length, has been constructed across that island, and by means of it several steam launches have been transported to the upper Maters, where they now ply. A telegraph line connects Hue in Ann am with the towns on the Me- Kong, and these with Saigon. The cost of the Laos administration is borne by Gochin-China (to the extent of six-thirteenths), Tonkin and Annam (five- thirteenths), and Cambodia (two-thirteenths).

Books of Reference on French Asia.

Indo-ChineFrangaise. Rapport General surlesStatistiquesdesDouaucs" Annual. Uano. Notice snr le Laos frangais [ofBcial]. Hanoi, 1900. Foreign Office Reports on the various Colonies. Annual, London. Aymonier{E.), Le Cambodge. 3 vols. Paris, 1000-04.

Barral (Joleaud), La Colonisation fran^aise au Tonkin et en Annam. Paris, 1809. Barthclemy (Comte de), En Indo-Chine. Paris, 1800. Bernard (F.), Indo-Chine. Paris, 1001. Billet (A.), Deux Ans dans le Haut Tonkin. Paris, 1898. Boell (P.), L'Inile et le Probl^mc Indien. Paris, 1901. Bonhoure (E.), I'lndo-Cliino. Paris, 1900.

Chailley-Bert (J.), La Colonisation de I'Indo-Chine. Paris, 1892. [English Trans- lation. London, 1894.]

Cunningham A.), The French in Tonkin and South China. London, 1002

Dupitis (J.),Lc Tong-kin et I'lntervcntion franoaisc. Paris, 1897.

Fosses (Castonuet dss), L'lmle Franraise au XVIIP Siecle. Pari!5.

Oallois (E.), A travers Ics ludes. Paris, 1899.— La France d'Asic. Paris, 1900.