LEVY, ROGER, GUY LACAM, and ANDREW ROTH. French Interests and Policies in the Far East. Pp. ix, 209. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1941. $2.00

• Author: Lennox A. Mills
• DOI: 10.1177/000271624222100136
• Date: 01 May 1942
• Published date: 01 May 1942
• Subject Matter: Articles

201

tabulating

amounts

of

money

spent

for

guns

and

military

equipment,

nor

is

it

possible

to

compute

accurately

the

amounts

spent,

no

matter

how

carefully

national

budgets

are

checked.

The

armed

might

of

a

nation

to-

day

comprises

far

more

than

the

number

of

guns

or

fortifications

it

possesses;

the

armed

might

of

a

nation

consists

of

its

re-

sources,

natural

and

reserve,

its

plant

ca-

pacity,

its

man

power-its

whole

war

poten-

tial.

In

its

very

limited

scope,

Mr.

Sloutzki’s

study

is

useful,

as

the

Armaments

Year

Book

and

various

other

League

publications

were

useful.

B.

W.

MAXWELL

New

York

City

LEVY,

ROGER,

GUY

LACAM,

and

ANDREW

ROTH.

French

Interests

and

Policies

in

the

Far

East.

Pp.

ix,

209.

New

York:

Institute

of

Pacific

Relations,

1941.

$2.00.

This

is

another

volume

of

the

very

use-

ful

Institute

of

Pacific

Relations

Inquiry

Series.

The

first

section,

written

by

Roger

Levy

in

1938,

describes

the

economic,

cul-

tural,

and

political

interests

of

France

in

China, Japan,

Southeastern

Asia,

and

the

South

Pacific

Islands.

What

principally

strikes

one

is

how

unimportant

they

were,

except

in

Indo-China.

On

the

cultural

side,

few

Chinese

or

Japanese

studied

French.

French

exports

to

China

were

small

and

to

Japan

smaller

still,

owing

to

their

high

price

and

to

the

failure

of

firms

in

France

to

study

the

Far

Eastern

market.

French

investments

in

China

were

only

about

$115,000,000.

France’s

exports

to

the

Southwestern

Pacific

were

equally

unimpor-

tant,

and

the

balance

of

trade

was

heavily

against

her,

owing

to

her

imports

of

tin

and

rubber.

The

one

exception

was

Indo-

China,

which

next

to

West

Africa

was

the

most

valuable

part

of

the

French

Empire.

In

1938

France

provided

57

per

cent

of

the

imports

and

took

53

per

cent

of

the

exports,

and

the

bulk

of

the

invested

capital

was

French.

Guy

Lacam

provides

a

supplement

on

the

economic

relations

between

Indo-

China

and

southern

China,

which

he

shows

&dquo;have

always

been

extremely

insignificant.&dquo;

The

most

interesting

section

of

the

book

is

the

chapters

by

Mr.

Levy

and

Mr.

Roth

on

the

political

relations

with

China

and

Japan

from

1937

to

1941.

The

defenses

of

Indo-China

were

pitiably

weak,

and

France

sent

little

help,

owing

to

the

German

threat.

Japan’s

policy

until

June

1940

was

to

stop

the

transport

of

all

supplies

over

the

Indo-

Chinese

railways

to

Chiang

Kai-shek

and

to

whittle

away

the

French

interests

in

China.

France’s

policy

was

to

avoid

a

war:

she

stopped

the

shipment

of

muni-

tions,

although

refusing

to

prohibit

other

trafhc.

The

defeat

of

France

was

followed

in

a

few

days

by

increasing

Japanese

pres-

sure :

the

object

now

was

to

gain

complete

control

of

Indo-China.

Agreements

were

broken

almost

as

soon

as

they

were

signed,

and

more

stringent

demands

presented;

and

Thailand

was

encouraged

to

attack.

Vichy

played

for

time,

appealed

for

aid

to

Ger-

many

and

the

United

States,

suppressed

the

De

Gaullists,

who

included

most

of

the

French

in

the

colony,

and

surrendered

com-

pletely

to

Japan.

By

March

1941,

Indo-

China

was

practically

a

Japanese

depend-

ency.

LENNOX

A.

MILLS

University

of

Minnesota

WEYER,

MARY

E.

The

Decline

of

French

Democracy.

Pp.

vi,

73.

Washington:

American

Council

on

Public

Affairs,

1940.

Clothbound:

$1.50;

Paperbound:

$1.00.

It

would

be

unfair

to

the

author

if

this

small

and

unpretentious

book

were

to

be

judged

from

its

pretentious

title

and

its

misleading

subtitle.

It

deals

almost

exclu-

sively

with

the

union

sacrie of

1914,

and

from

that

standpoint

it

is

not

without

in-

terest.

As

a

study

of

the

decline

of

French

democracy,

however,

it

is

not

only

too

re-

stricted

as

to

the

epoch

covered,

but

is

also

exaggerated

in

its

overemphasis

on

the

happenings

in

the

foreground

of

the

Pa-

risian

political

stage.

French

democracy

was

already

gravely

ill

when

the

war

of

1914

broke

out;

the

national

emergency

postponed

for

some

time

the

visible

de-

velopment

of

the

cancer

gnawing

at

the

French

body

politic,

and

the

victory

of

1918

superficially

concealed

the

symptoms

of

its

continuous

growth.

The

value

of

this

part-study,

which

Andr6

Maurois

over-

generously

commends

as

&dquo;an

account

writ-

ten

with

an

accuracy

and

an

objectivity

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