The Colonial Policy of France under the Third Republic : Leroy-Beaulieu and Jules Ferry

Abstract

Is there any relationship between colonialism and imperialism or are they rather independent phenomena in the evolution of world economic history? Is imperialism a pure opposition to the free-trade ideology which became prevalent in England and France in the l860s? This paper tries to respond to these questions by examining major works of the colonial promoters in the early period of the Third Republic in France, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu and Jules Ferry, and shows that the possession of colonies, together with free-trade ideology, was inseparable from the naissance and development of imperialism. In the first chapter, "The French colonial policy and imperialism", three types of interpretation in the imperialist theory-capital export, political hegemony and unequal exchange -are examined. The classical interpretation of imperialism, based on the necessity of capital export, was challenged in the l970s by the latter two doctrines on imperialism. The position of colonies in the French overseas expansion in the 1870s and I880s was, in fact, not so important both on the trade and investment planes. However, after the end of the 1870s, when competition among European countries led the protectionist trend in the world Market, the colonies were considered to be more important. In the second chapter, "The colonial theory of Paul Leroy-Beaulieu", the works of this important liberal economist and influential promoter of colonial and imperialist policies of the period are analyzed. Leroy-Beaulieu advocated the necessity of establishing export-oriented plantation colonies instead of the Wakefield-type immigration colonies. Capital-export is necessary in order to assure the international division of labor based on the metropole-colony relationship. The role of the state in economic expansion was stressed in the latter editions of his "On the colonization of Modern people". In the third chapter, "Jules Ferry and his colonial policy", it is shown that Ferry's government, based on the centralists among the republican force, promoted an aggressive colonial expansion in order to assure the outlets for home manufacturing industries and to invest capital which was in surplus in the mainland: these measures were to ensure social peace in Europe. The "colonial empire", was needed. Here we find the origin of the imperialist-type of relationship between the metropolitan center and peripheral countries. Therefore, three types of interpretation of imperialism are not necessarily contradictory but, instead, capital-export, international division of labor (free-trade theory) and the political and hegemonical motives of expansion supported by the will for an egalitarian and distributive social policy in Europe, are intimately interrelated and formed the driving force of imperialist policy under the Third Republic.