n Africa and Asia. Although China gave up her claim to the
territory a quarter of a century ago, it took many years longer to
pacify the country, and there is still something to be done. The cost in
men and money has been very great, and at one time the whole policy of
colonial expansion became so unpopular that it spelled political ruin
to the man most identified with it, Jules Ferry, "l'homme de Tonking."

The real history of Tonking dates from the administration of M. Doumer,
Governor-General of Indo-China from 1897 to 1902. During these five
years the Parisian printer, turned Radical politician and administrator,
showed what one able and determined man could do. When he arrived in the
East, piracy and brigandage were rife, there was an annual deficit of
some three million francs, and the feeble administration had done
nothing to develop the possibilities of the country. When he left, the
colony was upon its feet, lawlessness had been suppressed, the
administration reformed, and the deficit turned into a substantial
surplus. He had built towns and telegraphs, encouraged the native
industries of rice planting and silk culture, and by offering special
inducements to French enterprise had developed tea, coffee, and rubber
growing.

Nor did the energetic imperialist stop here. Believing that "a nation to
be great should be always striving to be greater," he began to develop a
vigorous forward policy which seemed to have as its goal nothing less
than the control of Yunnan and Southeast China. Colonial expansion was
necessary to the continued existence of France, he declared. In his last
report, looking back to the achievements of a past generation, he
concluded, "We are the same men, but we no longer believe in ourselves.
We act as if we were a vanquished people, and in any case we appear so
to the world. This is the result of our policy of effacement for which
must be substituted at all costs a policy of action which will permit us
to hold our rank."

It is true the forward policy did not originate with M. Doumer, for the
value of Tonking as the key to China had been recognized by French
statesmen before ever he put foot in the colony, but it was his task to
make that policy something more than a pious aspiration. Not only did he
set about making the French possessions the needed commercial and
industrial base for such an undertaking, but he also initiated the next
move in the game, the development of railway systems w