Abstract :
This article considers the changing ways in which French political elites understood
imperial obligation in the interwar years. It suggests that the economics of imperial rule and disputes over
what could and should be done to develop colonial economies provide the key to understanding both the failure
of interwar colonial reforms and the irreversible decline in France’s grip over its colonies. In making this case,
the article investigates four related colonial policy debates, all variously linked to changing conceptualizations
of economic obligation among France’s law-makers. The first concerns Albert Sarraut’s 1921 empire development
plan. The second reviews discussions over the respective obligations of the state and private
financiers in regenerating colonial economies during the depression years of the early 1930s. The third debate
reassesses policymakers’ disputes over colonial industrialization. Finally, the article revisits the apparent
failure of the investigative studies of economic and labour reforms conceived by the left-leaning Popular Front
in 1936–8. The point is to highlight the extent to which senior political figures clashed over concepts of
‘ colonial obligation ’ viewed less in the cultural terms of ‘ civilizing mission ’ than in the material sense
of economic outlay.
