The Cambodian economy: 1904-1939. Under the reigns of Sisowath (1904-1927) & Monivong (1927-1941). See articles in Siksācakr on rubber plantations. Dr Henri Locard at Center for Khmer Studies Phnom Penh. www.khmerstudies.org

1. The Cambodian economy
1904-1941
Under the reigns of
Sisowath (1904-1927) & Monivong (1927-1941)

2. Sources: John Tully – Margaret Slocomb &
Nhiek Tioulong
• France on the Mekong, 1863-1953, John Tully, 2002,
see chapters 14 &16
• Colonial Cambodia’s ‘Bad Frenchmen’, The rise of French
rule & the life of Thomas Caraman, 1840-87, Gregor
Muller, 2006.
• An Economic History of Cambodia in the XXth Century,
Margaret Slocomb, chap. 1, “The Colonial
economy,1863-1953”, NUS, Singapore 2010
• Colons & Coolies: The Development of Cambodia’s
Plantations, Margaret Slocomb, White Lotus, 2006.

3. The weight of the past : a hermit State the victim
both of its poor management & its ambitious
neighbours.
• Margaret Slocomb has pointed out that, before the arrival of
the French, "Cambodia was literally at the mercy of its neighbours" (33).
"Cambodia was divided into two spheres of influence with the Mekong
acting as the line of demarcation between the Thai [Siamese] sphere in the
east and the Vietnamese in the east."(32)
• The majority of the population followed their traditional occupation of rice
farming and fulfilled the roles of officials. Commerce, foreign trade and the
riparian [= along he banks of rivers] markets gardens were the preserve
of the Chinese, while the Cham fished and raised cattle. Compared to other
states in the region, Cambodia was poor. Agricultural surpluses were
uncommon, landholdings were small, yields were low, and irrigation systems
were rare. There were few roads, so the villages were defenceless against
bandits and rapacious officials.(33)

4. The weight of the past - 2
• Jan Ovesen: « And it is important to note (as did Forest
1980) that the Chinese did not own their chamkar land but
leased it from the colonial government, thereby securing
revenue for the state. »
• Foreign trade was almost non-existent by 1850. Phnom
Penh was effectively cut off from the outside world, and
visitors required Vietnamese permission to reach it via the
Mekong. Ports on the Gulf of Thailand, such as Kampot,
Chandler records, were more integrated with Vietnamese and
Thai [Siamese] economies than their own."(Colm, 33)

5. The economic rôle of the Chinese
•
‘Chinese’ in Cambodia today is nowadays primarily an occupational category.
Chinese immigrants from the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong found
trade and business opportunities in the country; others took leases on land to grow
vegetables and fruit for the market (Willmott 1967).
• These commercial occupations, comprising finance (and of late also including the
microfinance business), have set them apart from the Khmer who were predominantly
rice farmers (or civil servants, schoolteachers); that basic distinction still largely holds.
The ‘Chinese’ are also Khmer; they speak the Khmer language and follow Khmer
customs (call in Buddhist monks to their wedding and funeral ceremonies, for
example). The distinctive ethnic Chinese society that existed earlier, and qualified
Cambodia as a ‘plural society’, had largely disappeared by the 1970s (Willmott
1967, 1981). Almost the only things that give the ‘Chinese’ away nowadays are the
Chinese shrines that are found in almost every market, shop, or restaurant, and the
surprisingly large number of people who celebrate the Chinese New Year.’ (Ovesen
Feb. 2014)

6. By 1904, who was managing the country ?
• By the time Sisowath came to the throne, the main reforms
listed in the 1884 Thomson Convention were being
implemented: Cambodia bore the cost of the administration,
while the King and the court were placed on a civil list, and
slavery had been abolished. Not quite:
• Jan Ovesen “Slavery had already been formally abolished by Ang
Duong during the last years of his reign.. When the French did it again
in the very late 19th century, it was hailed by colonial writers (e.g. Paul
Collard 1925) as a major achievement for Liberté and Egalité. This is
of course just rhetoric, the French reform concerned the pol and komlah
categories of ‘hereditary slaves’ – a couple of thousand individuals
altogether who were neither particularly oppressed, nor lived in abject
poverty. Furthermore, head-tax could only be levied on free people, not on

7. Land ownership
• « The Convention of 17th June 1884 amounted to a
complete reorganisation of Cambodia: the number of
provinces (then 56) was drastically reduced, the commune
level of local government was introduced, the King’s
Council of Ministers was made subordinate to the
Résident supérieur, slavery was abolished, the royal
family was put on a civil list, Cambodia would henceforth
bear the expenses of the administration and, most
significantly, private property [in land] was established.”
(Slocomb, p. 21)

8. I - Agriculture
• All historians underline that in this essentially agricultural
society, with all the land being the King’s or crown
property. It was informally leased to individual farmers
who, if they failed to cultivate it for a period of 3 years,
lost the usufruct of it. They paid essentially a paddy tax
and a head tax or $2.50 piastres a year.
• Jean Delvert, in his famous Le Paysan cambodgien, points
out that as late as 1957, out of a population of 4,600,000
in habitants, there were 3,700,000 farmers. Those were
generally small holders, except a few in Battambang
Battambang province and the large rubber plantations
Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom, Prey Veng and
Kratie. In the course of the Protectorate, the farming
population would be be multiplied by four.

9. Land ownership
Article 9 of the 1884 Convention specified, "the land
of the kingdom, so far the exclusive property of the crown, will
cease to be inalienable"( Slocomb, 40)
2 diverging interpretations: 1st, land an be privatized,
as in “the enclosure movement” in Europe: gate open
to agrarian revolution, to be followed by industrial
revolution. Door open to concessions owned by
foreigners.
2nd interpretation, of John Tully & Gregor Muller: the
colonizing power becomes owner of the entire
territory and does what it pleases with it.

10. Land ownership – 2 :
The critics to the French colonialism
• John Tully, Chap. 16, King Rubber: “created a new
class of super-exploited rural proletarians”, “Khmer distaste
for plantation work”, “The Tonkinese bonded labourers”,
“The human livestock’ at Mimot”, “Labour inspector
Deklamare’s report” “Psychological damage ”, “sons of
bitches & starvation wages” (310-326).
• Gergor Muller has a mission: he writes in the name
of his « indignation of the way in which large parts of
humanity had been written out of narratives on colonialism.
If today’s historians could not rectify the injustice and cruelty
of colonial rule, they could at least work toward ensuring
that those who had been deprived of their rights to land and
freedom would not be deprived of their proper place in the
history books” (p. 5).

11. Gergor Muller - 2
• After the forced signature of the so-called Thomson
Convention signature on 17th June 1884 put an end to “the
existing land regime which had been in place, more or less
unchanged, for a thousand years. (…) With the exception of
Buddhist temples and royal real estate, all land in the Khmer
Kingdom had overnight become French property and was now
up for sale (p. 65).
• Under the new regime, all the kingdom’s revenue – customs,
taxes, revenue concessions – went to the French, leaving the
King with an annual civil list of 300,000 piastres for the
expenses of his household and the palace (187).

12. Srok Sraè
• … not to speak about prey, about which we shall
speak later.
• As to the rice growing area, there usually is only one
crop a year as irrigation is not much developed
contrary to Cambodia’s two neighbours, Siam and
Vietnam.
• Besides, contrary to John Tully’s assertions, the
Cambodian soil where rice is grow is usually quite
poor (sols très pauvres, Delvert, 57), because of the
nature of the soil, and perhaps to over-cultivation
of the same crop over the centuries. Except for
Battambang, Sisophon and some pockets of darker
soil, the land tends to be too clayey (dey et) or too
sandy (dey ksach) and there is a great lack of manure
(compost) and fertilizer.

14. Srok Sraè - 2
• Khmer rice agriculture adapts itself to the soil, it
does not control it and, until now, it has not
enriched it.
• Ploughing is extended over a long period of time as
the farmers prefer to plant out after the small dry
season of July-August. In all 60 to 70 days of work
are required per year for one hectare of land. For an
average farm of 2 hectares, it means, the rice farmer
was occupied between 120 and 140 days a year.

15. Srok Sraè - 3
• Those years of Protectorate 1897 to 1939 did not see much
in the growth of agricultural yields. One of the main reasons
was that irrigation public works in Cambodia during that
period – and contrary to Vietnam and the Mekong delta in
particular – were almost non-existent.
• One can only mention a dam in Bavel, Battambang, that
could theoretically irrigate 30,000 hectares, Chhoeung Prey
(Kompong Cham), a canal at Koki Thom (Prey veng) and
the Prey Nup dam to stop salt water to flood the coastal
plain. The latter had been renovated by French aid and is
now in full operation again to the great benefit of the local
population.
• Most of the rice had – and still has today – to depend on the
very irregular rainfalls, with one dry year on average every 5
years. Significant changes recently, particularly in Takeo.

16. Srok Sraè - 4
• As a result of all that, the yields were (and still are today,
although there has been some improvements lately) the
lowest in Indochina. Alain Forest (Le Cambodge & la
Colonisation française, p. 289) gives us the average figure for
the years 1919-1922: 1.100 kg per hectare.
• And it has remained so till the Democratic Kampuchea
period, when Angkar wanted to treble the yield to 3 tons
per hectare.
• At the same period (1919-1922), it was 1.350 in
Cochinchina and 1.400 in Tonkin. Cambodia produced
then about 450,000 to 500,000 tons a year from which
from 1/3 to ¼ was exported, which was a high
proportion. In all, Indochina then produced about
7,000,000 tons of rice and exported 1,800,000 tons.

17. Chamkar - 2
• Farmer would grow maize (with a fair proportion
for export), tobacco, cotton, fruit trees, sesame,
various kinds of beans, mulberry trees for
silkworms, sugar cane, banana trees, papayas, all
sorts of vegetables, including mushrooms
• A couple of oxen could be fattened before being
sold to the Cham butcher. Along the Sangkaè or
Pursat rivers there were orange orchards that were
watered during the dry season by creaking bamboo
norias (bucket waterwheels).

18. Chamkar - 3
• In the Kampot province and the south of Takeo,
the beginning of the 20th Century saw a boom in
pepper plantation to 2 million stems in 1905.
• In the region of Kompong Trach, pepper had been
introduced in about 1840 by Chinese planters. But
the French market was soon saturated and the
export businesses in Saigon paid a very low price to
the producers when exported to other markets,
mainly Singapore and Bangkok.

19. Chamkar - 4
• At the beginning of the 20th Century, Cambodian cotton was
regarded as being of very high quality in the international
markets. It was produced essentially in Kratie and Kompong
Cham provinces, in the districts of Tbong Khmum and Stung
Trang, Ksach Kandal, Srey Santhor, Kompong Siem. And also
in Lovea Em district of Prey Veng province.
• It was sown immediately when the water level fell, bloomed in
February and was collected between March and May. In 1913,
out of the 5,905 tons that were collected, 5,586 tons were
exported to Japan through Hong Kong. A podding (shelling)
plant was constructed in Ksach Kandal that treated about half
of the Cambodian cotton. But France practically never bought
any Cambodian cotton and preferred to buy cheap Indian
cotton. For commercial reasons, the production stagnated.
• Silk

20. Cattle
• Cambodia was by far the largest producer of cattle at the time.
Oxen and buffaloes were of great value to peasants as they are
used in agriculture. Their cost was high – about 50 piastres,
corresponding to 100 to 150 days’ work. In 1922, (Forest, 293),
there were 827,000 oxen and cows, 553,000 buffaloes, 600,000
pigs, 40,000 horses. In comparison, there were 410,000 bovidae
(oxen, cows and buffaloes) in Cochinchina, 390,000 pigs and
13,000 horses. In 1955, just after the colonial period, there were
921,000 oxen and cows, but only 279, 000 buffaloes.
• Those were mainly exported to Cochinchina or to the
Philippines. But the trade was most irregular. In the best years,
(1908-1911 & 1919-1921), Cambodia exported 15 to 40,000
heads of cattle. Towards Cochinchina it was about 10 to 20,000
heard a year. Exporting meat should have been one of the main
sources of income of Cambodia. But markets were never
diversified and only occasionally were some exported to
Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

21. The economics of Rubber – Caoutchouc - 1
A pure product of colonization was the
introduction of rubber plantation (hévéa) from 1921 by
French companies. First and main “imperialistcapitalist exploitation” of the protected country.
Economic colonisation to enrich the metropolis.
“Commodification” of land “which is a Marxist term
for things being assigned economic value which they
(according to Marxist) did not previously possess, by
their being produced and presented for sale, as
opposed to personal use”.
The demand of the market of natural rubber was
connected of course with the boom in car production
in the West. Exogenous character of the industry.
Commercial crop – not subsistence farming.

22. What was there before rubber ? - 2
• Plantations were established on the rich, well-structured
ferrallitiques, volcanic, basaltic soil of eastern Cambodia –
the richest soils in the world, an agronomist told me.
• Before, those areas, rising above the flooded plain, were
covered with thick hygrophilous or degraded forests of
thick bush & bamboo. “One finds trees 50m tall, with a
diameter of 5-6 m. at the base” (Sl., 57)
• Except for Mimot and Snuol areas, where swidden (slash
and burn) agriculture was practiced by ethnic minorities,
comparatively few Khmers were therefore expropriated
to make room for the plantations. Still not terra nullius, as
some ignorant people (including myself) believed. “Moïs,
Stiengs, Thiams & primitive Cambodians … pratctising swidden
agriculture” (Boucheret, 140). Cost of land, cheap.

23. The geography of the plantations - 3
• Those were established essentially in Kompong Cham
province (Chamcar Loeu, Stung Trang, Chup, Krek &
Mimot) and Kratie (Snoul).
• Sources (Slocomb, Aso) claim there were plantations in
Kompong Thom – there were none, only in neighbouring
Chamkar Lœu. As to Boucheret she saw rubber
plantations in Saoirieng, Takeo (142) and “the famous red
soil” of Mondolkiri” (140) – there were none in those
provinces. Say little or nothing about soil.
• By the end of the colonial period 75,603 hectares had
been planted from Chamkar Andoung in Chamkar Lœu,
and not in Kg. Thom to Snuol in Kratieh province from
West to East – along a line of 200 to 250 km.

25. The economy of rubber - 4
• Clearing: Stieng, Cambodians & Cham; tapping:
Tonkinese. 7 to 8 years before tapping.
• The French, thanks to hybridizing planted the
rubber trees best adapted to the soil and the
climate. 625 trees per hectare used to be planted, 2
meters from one another, with rows 8 meters apart
that enabled lorries to move between the trees.
• The maintenance was minimal, except protecting
the forest from fires. Trees were bled almost the
year round, except towards the end of the dry
season when they are given a rest. This every 3 or 4
days, which means about 95 times a year.
• By 1970, before the wars and revolutions,
Cambodia obtained the highest yields in the world:
2.5 tons a year at Mimot, for instance.

26. Economy - 2
• Average size: 550 ha. Up to over 10,000-14000 ha, like Chup.
Was said, in the sixties to be the largest in the world, and
Mimot, 9.500 ha., with the highest yield. 700-800 kg
rubber/an ha. per year.
• 73.603 ha in all in 1930s (Slocomb, 51)
• Conditions for concessions or up to 2,000, 5,000, 6,000 ha in
19 September kret (arrêté) 1926 : cahier des charges, a price per
ha (?);
• For hévéa, the concessionaire was required to commence
work within a year and plant ¼ of area within 5 years, ½
within 10 years, … or land would return to the domain
(Slocomb, 28).
• Conditions for protection of nearby forest, traditional rights
of inhabitants, compensation for same size of land if
evicted, grazing animals, fishing, firewood, buildings for
workers, approved hygiene … 2% tax on gross product.

28. Economy - 3
• « A source of considerable profit » Boucheret, 142), all
the more so since the Protectorate helped the companies
during the Great depression, 1929-33 and were able to
repay their debts by 1935 (ibid. 146).
• Low salaries: 10 hour day, $0,40 for men & 0.30 for
women. $12 per month. Rest day and festivals not paid.
when one coolie collected 3 kg per day, sold 63fr to 26fr a
kilo. Cost of bringing a coolie from Haiphong: $80.
Overseer:$55 a month
• Concludes with exogenous character of the industry:
capital, management, workforce and export.

29. Social conditions -5
• Originally, the “more reliable” workforce was recruited from
Tonkin through three-year contracts: « indentured coolies »,
« bonded labour »; in the 1930, an average of 10,000 coolies
arrived in Cambodia. Continuous movement back & forth
across the border. Lack of work force in C.: in 1937, population
density in C. of 17/square km.
• Mimot plantation: almost constant conflicts; peaked in 1926.
Desenlis, the Résident of Kg. Cham wrote to Baudoin, Res. Sup.
That the Société Indochinoise des Plantations de Mimot wants to clear
5,000 ha. And will enter in conflict with the Stieng population. “I
am going to write immediately to d’Ursel, telling him to respects absolutely
all natives’ chamkar and not touch them under any pretext.” (Slocomb,
41). 3,168 inhabitants, cultivating 700 ha. of upland rice, mainly Stieng.
Desenlis wanted 6 reserves for the Stieng “which are absolutely
their own” and the rest of the area should be sold by the
Administration for development by others.

30. Social conditions -5 - 1
• November 1927, d’Ursel complied with the Rés Sup.’s
order. Desenlis went to Mimot, spending most of the
month there & visited the villages of the Stieng, in the
company of the Governor of Tbong Khmum, and
chauvaikhand of Mimot. Considerable opposition from the
people: compromise: 5 concessions on the red lands of
Mimot and 6 reserves for indigenous inhabitants. Could
choose the land to clear and given 2 years before leaving
old land. Would given them twice the area needed, not 4
times for a four-year-rotation of crops. Would receive
fertilizer in compensation, plus $12 per ha.

31. Politics: communism & nationalism – 8
World War II
• Aso, Boucheret & Slocomb read too much in the
political agitation of the 1930s and confuse
Cambodia & Vietnam, Indochina & Cambodia. Most
of their analyses are quite irrelevant and are making
Pol Pot’s propaganda.
• During the Vichy regime the crêpe could not be all
sent to Japan. “Indochinese plantations sat idle” (135)
• From 1936, the C. nationalist movement was
restricted to the literate elite in the Khmer
administration around Nagarawatta, the Buddhist
Institute and the Association of ex-Sisowath
students. Totally ignored by the illiterate ‘coolies’ and

33. Some confusion
• … is reached by Mitch Aso: “When WW II ended [in
September 1945] , rubber plantations faced other formidable
challenges. These problems included the reversion of plantation land
to forests, the destruction & loss of equipment, a most importantly
the dispersal of labour forces. Yet, by 1946, production in and even
exceeded pre-war levels.” (Siksācakr, p. 136). How could all
this happen within 1 year ?
• By then, 4 independence movements: 1, communist
Khmer-Vietminh in the East; 2, Thai Issaraks in the West;
3, Liberal Democrats in towns; and, later, 4, Sihanouk’s
‘Royal crusade for Independence’

34. After independence: post-1953 - 9
• After independence more and more Khmers were employed
while the Vietnamese returned home. Still, by 1970, at least
20,000 people, or about one third of the workers were of
Vietnamese origin. This explains why, in the course of the
second Indochinese War, the Vietminh could easily find
sympathizers & and take refuge in those plantations that
protected them from enemy aircrafts.
• The French still in full control: 20 years. Jean Delvert: by
1970, 50,000 ha yielding 50,000 tons of high quality rubber.
Highest yields in the world at Mimot: 2.5 t./ha.. 280 ha of
coffee plant in Pailin: George Bonzon
• No mention of the Takhmau rubber tyre factory
• 1966: invitation to Mimot. Vegetables, dairy farm…
• 1966, Labansiek in Ratankiri, now Banlung. Herbaceous
cover between curving rows of young trees to create a
mulch.

35. Fishing
Fish is the second most important source of income for the
Cambodian farmers. The fishing season September to June. On
the Mekong, December to April. Most of the fishing was on a
family basis, but large fishing lots were leased on the Tonle Sap
lake from 1908 by the French colonial authorities and the
flooded areas along the Mekong. Those leases would constitute a
significant income for the Cambodian budget: 1920, $640,000
out of a $6,079,000 budget.
Before the French interference, the largest companies operated
on the Tonle Sap and were a monopoly of the Chinese
businessmen who had close relations with the palace. The French
put an end to this monopoly after the death of King Norodom
to give the proceeds to the national budget. In Also Vietnamese
businessmen, who hired Cambodian or Vietnamese coolies who
were paid only 8-10 piastres a month, could also buy lots. 1911,
Tonle Chhmar on Stœung Sen, Kg. Thom. First C. cooperative ?

36. Forestry
• The forest covered more than half of the territory. For
instance, in 1920, Cambodia exported 87,000 tons of timber
towards Cochinchina and this was the second heaviest export
after rice. In the course of the years 1913-1920, tax on timber
represented 9% of the budget which was much. That was the
highest percentage in the Indochinese territories.
• Most of these forests were inaccessible and therefore
exploited only at the periphery. The Protectorate established,
as in France, the Administration of Eaux et Forêts. But the
service had neither the personnel nor the equipment to do
much more than administer the regions situated close to the
means of communication that is mainly the Mekong valley
where rigorous regulations were put in place to protect the
exploitation of the forest. Concessions could not be given for
more than 3 years.

37. Has Cambodian agriculture benefitted from
French colonisation ?
• Yes and no. Jean Delvert wrote that he Protectorate has not done
much for the Khmer farmers in general. But he added that it has
brought two essential benefits, first peace and secondly an
administration that has run quite smoothly. And I would add the
rubber plantations.
• Before 1863, the country had been bled white by incessant wars,
invasions and rebellions – not to mention the rapacity (cupidity,
predatoriness, voracity) of its leaders. And a greatly expanded
population.
• This can be shown, for instance, through the population growth
from 750,000 in 1853 to 4.5 million in 1953, thank to the new
political and economic stability. Still, "the cadastral system was embryonic
when the French left. Land titles, then as now, existed to protect and benefit the
rich, and it is unlikely that a common rice farmer possessed any proof of
ownership of the land ha worked. Chronic indebtedness to the local moneylender was still the rule rather than the exception, despite some small attempts
by the State to provide agricultural credit. Rural living standards changed very
little.”

38. Handicrafts
• As most farmers in colonial Cambodia practiced mostly
subsistence agriculture, and trade was limited, households
made most objects they needed for everyday life: ploughs,
carts, tools, basketwork, sampans, fishing tackle, clothes,
mats, even constructing their own houses or huts, etc. …
Handicrafts were very developed not only in the
countryside but in towns as well. Spoan (bronze) and
silver-smithing around Udong.
• Weaving cotton and silk material for karmas, sampots and
sarongs was common throughout the country with locally
produced cotton and silk, particularly along the banks of
the Mekong. The import of cheap cloth tended to
compete with that cottage industry from the time of the
First World War.

46. Industry
• There was none when the French arrived and
practically none when they left – unlike in
neighbouring Vietnam. That did not worry France
since, according to colonial norms, the colonies were to
supply the metropolis with primary products (from
agriculture and mines) and just supply a market for the
mass industrially products of the metropolis.
Unfortunately for France, apart from the King himself
and some of his courtiers, the Khmers could ill afford
the sophisticated productions of the industrialized
world. Industry was to be in Tonkin.
• Distilleries, rice-mills in Cholon, shipbuilding from
WW I, coachbuilders’ workshops for lorries (trucks)
and coaches (buses) were built from bodies imported
from France.

47. Trade
• Cambodia exported essentially its surplus from
agriculture, the forest, and, from the1930s, its
rubber. But the entire foreign trade went through
Chinese companies in Cholon and a few French
companies in Saigon. It is therefore impossible to
give statistics for exports and imports, as there was
a customs union between the 4 protectorates and
the 1 colony of the Indochinese Union that
counted as one country.
• It meant the import or export duties went directly
to the Indochinese budget and to Hanoi and
Cambodia only received a fraction of it. All through
the existence of Indochina, poor Cambodia was
subsidizing its richer and more powerful neighbour.

48. Transport
• River navigation was the main means of transport and, in early
colonial days, there were many rowing boats and sailing junks on
the Mekong and the Tonle Sap. Some sailing boats or motor
boats could tow rafts or timber floats down to Cochinchina and
Saigon. From June to November, high sea vessels could sail up
to Phnom Penh and larger ships of the Compagnie Saigonnaise de
Transport & Navigation could sail up the Great Lake to Siemreap
and Bacprea to load rice from Battambang.
• In the Gulf of Thailand, the maritime transport was made by
Chinese sailing junks. A Danish ship, the Bhanuraingsi,
connected each week Bangkok and Saigon via Kone, KampotKep to load essentially sea food.
• Before the Protectorate, outside the ancient Angkorean
roadways and the so-called royal road built by Ang Duong
between Udong and Kampot, there were an infinite number of
tracks that were more or less flooded during the rainy season.
The means of transport of the time were ox-carts or horse-carts
and elephants.

49. • IMG_2299.JPG

51. Roads & Railways
• To link Phnom Penh and the various provinces, network of high
embankments that were metalled (with stones & gravel) to make
them suitable for car in the 1920s. Then the most important
rubber plantations in Kompong Cham were connected to
Saigon via Tay Ninh. Chup & Mimot were directly connected to
Saigon. Road to Poipet on the Siamese border. Similarly, Stung
Treng was connected to Lower Laos.
• As the railways, Paul Doumer conceived the project for a railway
from Saigon-Phnom Penh-Siam as early as 1897. In 1911, Hanoi
wanted to build the Phnom Penh Saigon line, but the French
National Assembly refused to vote the budget for it. It was not
until the year 1930 that the line Phnom Penh-Battambang and
then Monkol Borey was built. The Phnom Penh-Saigon line was
dropped. The line will be extended by the Japanese army in
1945, in order to be linked to the Thai railway system for
military purposes in their Pacific War.

52. The Media
During Sisowath’s reign, all provincial capitals were linked
by telegraphic lines to the capital. Mail was sent by steam
boats or by commercial buses. Postmen also used bicycles to
distribute the mail several times a week. The main provinces
were connected by telephone.
The press did not exist in Cambodia before the publication
in 1936 of Nagaravatta, the first weekly in Khmer language.
Before, there were a couple of newspapers from Saigon that
were brought by the postal or commercial buses at midday. .
The first radio sets appeared in 1937. But one could hear
only Siamese news and music and from other foreign
countries. Later Radio-Saigon was to be heard in French and
Annamite. Later, during the Second World War, a Khmer
language programme was created

53. In 1901, the piastre was equivalent to 2.50 French francs.
Usually represented by $

55. Conclusion : Margaret Colm
• Colonialism was, of course, abhorrent. It trampled on the
historical paths of militarily weaker states, exploited their
natural resources and subjected their populations to harsh
…Western capitalism.
• On the other hand, the peoples of the states that made up
this French construct [Indochina] were the beneficiaries of
the policies and practices of some truly visionary and
humane governors-general, especially Varenne and Pasquier,
and in Cambodia, even at the provincial level there were
residents like Desenlis who toiled tirelessly to bring justice to
the small people, especially the Tonkinese coolies who
laboured on the rubber plantations of Kompong Cham.
Centuries of occupation by Siam and Vietnam had left little
trace; the 90 years of the French Protectorate, on the other
hand, would change Cambodia irreversibly. (45).

56. Epilogue: the fate of Résident Bardez ?
• In 1925, « angry villagers had beaten to death and then
cooked and eaten the liver of the Résident of
neighbouring Kompong Chhnang Porovince when he had
attempted to collect unpaid dues. » (Slocomb, p. 137)
• Ref. : For details, see Chandler, Facing the
Cambodian Past (Chiangmai: Silkworm, 1996)
139-58.