Report on Indo-French Trade

At Marseilles the Bourse belongs to the Chamber it also administers and controls the greater part of the port and is responsible for the works of extension already in hand costing some 91 rnillion francs of which it has assumed liability to the extent of 421 millions. [...] This has led to an extension of factories and the erection of new workshops—notably in the country south-east from Roanne around Lyons in the Rhone valley in the Dauphine and in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. [...] The chief object of our mission was to endeavour to obtain some idea of the economic changes foreshadowed in France and of the possibilities of the extension of Indian trade with France. [...] It is sufficient here to say that (i) the principles underlying the French tariff seem to be (a) the protetion of French agriculture and the agriculture of those possessions in which the French tariff has been introduced an bloc (this has been clyne frequently notably in the case of Indo-China) and (b) the protection of French industry. [...] The copra from the West Coast of India is the best in the world and in the past some 66 perlent of it has gone to Germany.