French Indochina is a union not only of different states bur of geographically diverse areas. Both the physical and cultural-geographic elements have variety in their distribution on the land. This lack of uniformity presents problems for those attempting to create national unity within Indochina. The present brief review can mention only some of the more important contrasts; thoughtful persons will wish to bear in mind these physical and the equally complex cultural-geographic elements in considering those economic and political situations that have arisen in Indochina in modern times.

Cambodian history begins in the delta of the Mékong. It naturally divides itself into five periods of unequal length and importance: (1) the Funan period, from early in the first century A.D. to near the middle of the sixth century; (2) the Chenla period, from then to 802; (3) the Kambuja or Angkor period, from 802 to 1432; (4) the independent Cambodia period, from 1432 to 1864; and (5) the French protectorate, covering the period since 1864.

Present disturbed relations between France and the republic of Vietnam add a special significance to the story of how near France came, in 1863 and 1864, to abandoning her colony in Cochinchina. It was by using as a base the three southern provinces of Cochinchina (Basse Cochinchine) which she had conquered from Annam that France subsequently established her protectorate over Cambodia, annexed the remaining three provinces of Cochinchina, and eventually extended her suzerainty over Annam, Tonkin, and Laos. Had she not decided to remain in Cochinchina, therefore, it is doubtful if she would have attained the rank, of an important imperial power in the Far East.

French Indochina presents a veritable mosaic of languages, among which are representatives of all the major language families of Southeast Asia. This country has long served as a geographical cul-desac for the continental mass of Asia and thus has received a variety of cultural and linguistic influences, producing one of the most complex ethnological pictures to be found anywhere in the world. Within its confines may be found languages belonging to the Mon-Khmer, Malayo-Polynesian, Annamese-Müöng, Thai, Kadai, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, and Chinese stocks. Generally the centers of distribution for these language stocks lie outside Indochina, which has received only a trickle of speakers from linguistic spillage across its borders; only one of these stocks (Annamese-Müöng) is an exclusively native product of Indochina. Little is known of most of these languages, and even the more important among them (Annamese, Khmer, Lao) have not yet received adequate modern linguistic treatment. The main outlines are sufficiently clear, however, and afford us data on the cultural history of the country.

In thinking about the claims to independence of the large civilized nations of south and Southeast Asia, we are prone to forget or to ignore the fact that these regions also contain more than eighty million tribal minorities. These large minorities are not negligible quantities in the ethics of democracy; not even a single individual is of such trifling importance as to be brushed aside with the classical adage de minimis non curat praetor. Professor Robert M. Maclver has emphasized that, just as the human being is unable to unfold his potentialities without the protection and care of society, so society cannot attain its maximum development without granting to every individual every opportunity for full self-realization and individualization. The same is true, I think, also of minority groups.

The development of the natural resources of French Indochina for industrial growth has played a small role in the economy of the country. Handicraft industries have, until recently, produced all manufactured articles. A few modern industries have developed under French control, but French policy has discouraged colonial industries that might compete with exports from France.

Last March, the Inter-Asian Conference at New Delhi gave clear expression to the sympathy of Asia's peoples with Vietnam in its fight against colonial imperialism. And this was not just an empty gesture. The Hindu government has decided to place limits on the passage of French airplanes over India; and Indian longshoremen have refused to work for the revictualling of French troop transports.

There are those who will see an “Asiatic racism” in such manifestations as these. They will recall the Japanese propaganda for a “Greater Asia” which in fact would but have been an Asia dominated by Nipponese imperialism. The Inter-Asian Conference assumes an entirely different significance. It resumes the long-term trend which began in the first decade of this century, for the renovation of Asia by the democratic ideal of Western Europe.

Culturally Indochina has suffered considerably, though less as a result of the war than of the strife which has followed it, and the damage sustained has been in the fields of both personnel and material equipment.

The losses of the Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) have been chiefly in regard to personnel. Its prewar and wartime director, Georges Coedès, has resigned and is living in France, where he has succeeded Paul Pelliot as head of the Musée Dennery. P. Guilleminet, the ethnologist, has also retired from the EFEO, and M. Destombes, the school's specialist in ancient maps, is now working with UNESCO in Paris. Georges Groslier, another distinguished member of the EFEO staff and curator of the Phnom Penh museum, died in June 1945 during an interrogation by the Japanese. Madeleine Colani, ethnographer of Tonkin and Laos, died at Hanoi in June 1943 at an advanced age.