Sur les principes de colonisation d'Arthur Girault (1895)

Abstract

Arthur Girault, professor in law and dean of the faculty of law of Poitiers from 1923 till 1931, publishes in 1895 the first edition of his Principles of colonization and colonial legislation. The surprising editorial fate of a book, which will know five editions within half a century and will be of use to the training of thousand colonial administrators, justifies the interest which can be carried, today still, in the conceptions which the author develops. The article deals exclusively with the introductory part of a work which will decline gradually in five volumes. The comment of the author is to anchor the description of the colonial legislation in what he calls principles of colonization. It is a question of connecting the general problem of the colonization to that of the colonial legislation by showing that the type of colonization determines the institutional choices and the legal models. Arthur Girault builds his theory around three principles which send back to three forms of colonization that he believes to discern. The first principle, the subjection, is morally open to criticism, because it turns the back in the educational duty and of rise that the colonizer keeps towards the colonized country. The second principle, the autonomy, is for Girault a virtuous model. He admires England which is inspired by it for the organization of its empire, but he rejects its transposition for the French empire in the name of one supposed Latin genius. The third principle, the assimilation, expresses the preferences of Girault. It is also for him the point of outcome of a successful colonial policy, because it aims at uniting strictly the colony with its mother country by being inspired by republican ideal. For him, colonies integrating the homeland must be gradually subjected to the same rules as the mother country. But the author admits immediately in the successive editions of his work that this generous idea remains a distant target. The article shows how much Girault is wedded to the Lumière's heritage but also his hesitation to give to the protectorates and colonies the benefit of this doctrine. On the other hand, the scientistic ideology which characterizes the end of the XIXth century prints strongly Arthur Girault's ideas. Developed on a bottom of social Darwinism, its doctrine adheres to the main postulates of the positivism by betraying an almost blind confidence in the progress of the science and the history itself.