The survey question in Cochin-China
M. Camouilly, a French colonial administrator in Cochin-China, published this paper in 1886 (translated into English by W. E. Maxwell of the Straits Settlements) to argue that a comprehensive cadastral survey of the colony would be prohibitively expensive, practically unfinishable, and destructive of the efficient Annamite communal tax-collecting system, advocating instead a voluntary Torrens-style registration of title for individual holdings.
Summary
Camouilly’s paper responds to proposals before the Colonial Council of Cochin-China to undertake an allotment (cadastral) survey of the colony’s cultivated lands. He systematically dismantles the case for such a survey on three grounds: cost, feasibility, and utility. On cost, he reviews two existing estimates by French survey officers—Bataille (1879) and Boilloux—and argues both are inadequate, then constructs his own figure based on the colony’s actual cultivated area and projected expansion. On feasibility, he draws on the experience of France’s own cadastral survey, which took over forty years and cost 160 million francs, to argue that a similar undertaking in Cochin-China would never be completed and, once partially done, could never be maintained. On utility, he contends that the existing Annamite commune system already collects land revenue efficiently through collective village liability, and that replacing it with individual assessment would destroy a mechanism that governs 1.6 million inhabitants through only 2,450 municipalities without the expense of individual tax collection, litigation, or enforcement.
Having rejected the cadastral survey, Camouilly proposes an alternative: the voluntary application of the Torrens system of title registration, as practised in Australia, to individual holdings whose owners request it. He argues that Annamite landholders, who currently borrow at ruinous rates from native moneylenders, would benefit from government-certified titles that could serve as collateral for loans from respectable banking institutions, potentially reducing interest rates by four-fifths. The survey work required would be limited to demarcating and registering only those parcels brought forward by applicants, avoiding the massive expenditure and administrative disruption of a colony-wide cadastre.
Maxwell’s introduction frames the piece for a Straits Settlements audience, noting his own disagreement with Camouilly’s anti-cadastral position while acknowledging the interest of the Torrens proposal. He points out an internal tension in Camouilly’s argument: if the communal system is too fragile to withstand a cadastral survey, it is equally vulnerable to the piecemeal individual registration that the Torrens system entails.
Key Findings
- France’s cadastral survey, initiated by the law of 15 September 1807, was not completed until 1850 (Cantal) and cost 160 million francs; the three departments annexed in 1860 remained unsurveyed (pp. 276–277).
- Boilloux’s estimate for a Cochin-China cadastral survey: 23,304,784 francs for the survey itself (16 years, 84 European and 105 native staff), plus a 19,212,660 franc capital for a permanent maintenance staff of 124, totalling 42,517,444 francs, or 10 francs 75 centimes per hectare (pp. 279–280).
- Camouilly’s own revised estimate: approximately 16,000,000 francs for surveying 1,450,000 hectares (950,000 hectares currently cultivated plus 500,000 hectares projected over 16 years) at 11 francs per hectare (pp. 283–284).
- The colony’s rice exports rose from an average of 5,165,000 piculs (1881–82) to 8,538,000 piculs (1883–84), indicating an estimated 152,000 hectares of new cultivation brought under the plough in that period (pp. 282–283).
- The discrepancy between revenue-roll areas and topographical survey areas across nine surveyed arrondissements amounted to roughly one-fortieth of the total, confirming the communal system’s relative accuracy without individual assessment (p. 286).
- Under the Torrens system in Australia, no case of colonial liability had been questioned as of 1878, and conveyancing costs had fallen to near zero (p. 289).
Conclusion
Camouilly’s definitive position is that the Annamite commune system is an “admirable institution” that the French administration should preserve rather than dismantle through the importation of European cadastral methods; the colony’s immediate administrative needs are better served by a targeted, voluntary Torrens registration that addresses the genuine problem of native landholders’ access to credit without the catastrophic cost and disruption of a full cadastre.
Context
- Camouilly was a French colonial official in Cochin-China writing for the Société des Études Indo-Chinoises de Saigon; his argument reflects the administrative priorities of the early French colonial period, in which preserving indigenous institutions was often preferred to costly European-style reform.
- Maxwell, a British official in the Straits Settlements, translated and introduced the paper for the JSBRAS readership, explicitly noting his own advocacy of cadastral survey and his scepticism toward the difficulties Camouilly identifies—difficulties he considered already overcome in British India.