Uncertain origins

The history of the Messageries takes us back to the 1870s, at a time when the French admiralty was supporting about three thousand troops in Cochinchina and when the Saigon port, then a little over fifty thousand inhabitants, was hosting the Colonial Council, which, before the time of Governor General Paul Doumer, was levying taxes from the indigenous population and employing them in a discretionary fashion. That is also to say, if you wanted to set up a trade in those times, you needed a real spirit of adventure and a strong will, or much political clout in this small pond.

The origin of the Messageries Fluviales de Cochinchine, the River Shipping Company of Cochinchina, depends on who tells the story.

The famous Roque brothers, Victor and Henri, who came from the province of Aveyron, in France¹⁾ but who had already been is Asia for awhile, were supplying the Cochinchina troops from the Philippines since 1857, and more so since the landing in Tourane²⁾ in 1858. When the Admiralty called on private entrepreneurs to take part in the construction of the colony with the help of subsidies levied from the Indochinese population, Victor came and settled in Saigon in 1860, then had his brother Henri come along, and they partnered in 1870 with a Mr. Marcellin Larrieu to open the Steamer Shipping Company of Cochinchina³⁾, which started trading the rivers between Saigon and Cambodia, at the time up to Kratie, the hightest point deemed navigable on the Mekong.

Several years later, after the failure of a project in railways, already towards Cambodia, Jules Rueff⁴⁾ turned to the river, a much more natural communication way in the region, and founded the River Shipping Company of Cochinchina (Messageries Fluviales de Cochinchine) in 1881⁵⁾. The Messageries, the head office of which was in Paris, were from the start endowed with the largest capital in the colony (one and a half million francs), and were allocated since even before incorporation the subsidies that had been until then given to the Steamer Shipping Company, and a nine-year-contract ensuring the monopoly over mail shipping⁶⁾. They took the upper hand on river transportation towards the Mekong delta and Cambodia.

The Roque brothers are often credited with the foundation of the Messageries Fluviales, although the statutes of the Messageries give its origin in 1881. Was it a common agreement? Did one of the Roque brothers come back to establish the Messageries with Rueff⁷⁾? Was it an example of the discretionary power the Colonial Council exerted in the wielding of its subsidies? The jungle never stopped at the entrance of the city.

Anyhow, many companies could envision their success only with the help of subsidies, and the granting of such subsidies often made for an uneven playing field. We could find no hint of the Steamer Shipping Company after 1882, and we meet the Roque brothers again far North in Tonkin as soon as a few years afterwards.

a time for adventure

The Messageries fluviales took a central part in the logistics of the 1893 expeditions upstream to Laos, with launches like the Hàm Luông, Lagrandière, or Massie, which allowed access up to Luang Prabang and even to the Golden Triangle and the Southernmost confines of China. But at that time, like today, the Khôn falls, at the 4000 islands, prevented steamers from crossing the Mekong upwards from Cambodia to Laos. In order to transport the first launches to the first bief upstream, the Messageries installed on the large Khôn island first a metric railway with three hand-powered carts, then a real railway when commercial traffic took up.

There we find a steamer named Bassac, shuttling goods between the Southern end of the Khôn island, just South of Laos, and Cochinchina.

Like many de facto monopolies, the Messageries Fluviales had a mixed reputation of using and sometimes abusing their privileged position. Supplying the troops and colonization effort towards Tonkin was very lucrative, and it was probably to keep the upper hand on this market that the Messageries Fluviales supported and even financed in part the 1893 expeditions, meant to open commercial routes to Laos.

When they opened a line towards Battambang, which was de facto under the dominion of the kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) but was coveted by France, the Messageries ran along this way very irregularly. Traders who needed to ship goods through the Battambang would have to pay grossly inflated fares and even kickbacks, and it is said Jules Rueff would lend at the steep rate of 120% per annum⁸⁾. When competitors tried to open trading routes on waterways Rueff judged his own, not only did they not get the subsidies, but the Messageries had their own contracts extended.⁹⁾¹⁰⁾

“In this business, which was entirely to the benefit of the Company, the Colony was to pay for the whole 25 years of the contract that committed it to Rueff, as a postal subsidy, considerable amounts of money, which allowed him to build within 15 years¹¹⁾ a colossal fortune. […] That did not prevent the management from being such misers as to make all the Scroodges on Earth pale in jealousy.”¹²⁾)

The crew were ill-paid and made liable for any loss, but such was the moral standing that some had a reputation for good living, and a few even made a fortune, basking in riches, women and even racing horses, like a certain Commissioner P… on board the steamer Donaï¹³⁾, who the tax officers chased all around Indochina and Siam for smuggling weapons and opium but never caught.¹⁴⁾

The Messageries Fluviales were nevertheless very present throughout the period, and took an active part in the expansion of the colony. Its boats were involved in both the logistics and the military operations, the cargo J-B Say was even sunk by the Siamese in 1893¹⁵⁾) in the midst of such an operation.

Power and neglect

The adventure and passion for the river must have dwindled with the advent of the later contracts: in 1914, no question of a 20-years monopoly anymore, and the terms were tightened so much as to turn the Messageries essentially into an administration.¹⁶⁾ Between the ebb and flow of the Mekong, the lack of diligence of the officers in charge and insufficient infrastructures, The Messageries, went on neglecting their duties until the outrage flared in the late 20s.

About a paved road along Khôn island, built less than 10 years before: “M. le Résident Supérieur p.i. en marge du rapport sur la province de Bassac: Il est certain que c'est l'esprit de suite qui a le plus manqué au Laos. Il semble que les routes faites aient cessé d'intéresser M. Mahé -et c'est ici le cas- dès l'instant où elles étaient terminées. Aujourd'hui la chaussée est envahie par l'herbe, les ponts sont effondrés et la machine complètement rouillée sera très difficile à remettre en état.”
Mr. the interim Superior Resident in the margin of the report on the province of Bassac: Surely the spirit of continuity is what lacked most in Laos. It seems that roads, once built, ceased being of interest to Mr. Mahé -and this is the case here- as soon as they were complete. Today the pavement is overgrown with weeds, the bridges have collapsed and the rusted out engine is going to be very hard to put back in order.“

Then the Compagnie Saïgonnaise de Navigation et de Transport (C.S.N.T.)¹⁷⁾ and based in Saigon, the Messageries steeply increased the river transportation fares in 1926, once the contracts had been secured for a new period, thus opening wide the way for Siamese (Thai) competition, anchoring their bad name with the residents of Laos, and firing outrage in the metropole.

The business became essentially a conglomerate: the capital of the Messageries was invested into as diverse sectors as plantation and transformation of rubber, the Comptoirs Généraux de l'Indochine (general commercial venture, state-sponsored), public works and electricity, sawmills and the Crédit Foncier de l'Indochine, a bank.¹⁸⁾

The C.N.S.T. was eventually sold in 1938 to the Société de Chalandage et Remorquage de l’Indochine (River shipping and Tugging company of Indochina).