difficulties. On the other hand, Decoux’s économie dirige’ was strictly geared to production destined for Japan. It entailed progressive restraints on production of items lacking foreign markets and deprived of imported producer goods. The new orientation also accorded high priority to agricultural and industrial activity with a view to achieving immediate import substitution. In theory, but hardly in practice, the system was supposed to deliver an “equitable and judicious distribution" of imported goods to the population with a view to maintaining ordinary economic activity as long as possible (ADM SLOTFDM 112971145 127/1135 BR no. 238, SRED, Chungking May 10, 1944). As indicated in table 5.2, the actual qmntities of rice and maize delivered to Japan reveal rice exports in particular recording a steady increase between 1941 and 1943 and with total rice and maize exports exceeding one million tomes per annum by 1942. The 1943744 harvest was the worst in Cochinchina (and Cambodia) since 1938, realizing a yield of 2,600,000 tonnes, or 19 percent less than average. This resulted from a diminution of area cultivated, a
prolonged drougit in JulyiAugust 1943, and “labor problems." With local comumption further reducing the exportable surplus, total rice exports from Cochinchina for 1944 (six hundred thousand tomes) was actually the worst result since 1912 (BEI 1944, 271772).
Table 5.2. Rice and Com Exports from Indochina to Japan
Year Rice 2mm (tonnes) mu 4bE,280 mi sum [942 51.1.94; [943 97a,bos~ [944 buu,uuo~~ Source. Annuaue Slallsuque de l’lndpchine; MInISEIY de I’lnformaunn. *Nguyen The ma. (19533. 210). “ELI 1944, 255,
Lorri Export: (tonnes) 177,013 “9,232 121,930 qu,7b3 7
The Comptoirs But how did Governor General Decoux and collaborators realize their program of mitigated autarky, the report queried? First, Decoux gained extraordinary administrative powers vis-avis metropolitan France, including control over the Indochinese economy. Rather than strictly étatique considerations, local directions came into line with the corporatist principles of New France adapted to the particular conditions of the colonies. Accordingly, the new economic and social rules established by Vichy were implemented in Indochina. Second, as examined below, the Decoux administration then acted through the creation of intermediary group corporations or agencies (comptoirs) to connect with the Indochina war economy. Tightly controlled by the government, the comptoirs were entrusted with collecting