Indo-Chinese
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Cost of Repatriating Indo-Chinese From French Territories Nine Million Francs is the Estimate
REPLYING to questions in the French National Assembly recently, the Minister for France Overseas said that the cost of repatriating the Ton kinese workers in the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, then awating a ship to call from Saigon, was in the neighbour hood of nine million francs. This would be covered by a loan which would be re paid by the New Caledonian Treasury.
Since the Minister explained the posi tion, the ship, “Yang Tse,” has left Noumea for Haiphong with 598 Tonkinese —318 men, 65 women and 217 children.
About a thousand of their compatriots were on the quay to wave them farewell.
Their baggage was carefully inspected by seven customs officials, who took posses sion of all knives and razors—these to be numbered and subsequently returned to their owners.
The last occasion when Indo-Chinese were repatriated from the South Pacific was November, 1947, when the “Nantes” took 381 from Noumea and 195 from the New Hebrides back to Haiphong.
On October 1, 1948, there were still 2,368 adult Indo-Chinese men and women and 1,070 children in New Caledonia.