Colonial tariff structures systematically discriminated against African producers and consumers

Evidence

In point of fact, the belief that France and West Africa would benefit equally from the development of raw materials and cash crops for export, and increased consumption of imports, was fallacious from the outset. It served the particular economic needs of the federation first, and those of Africans only secondarily. Such a belief was in the interests of the Government General, since its own budget depended upon the tariff revenues derived from exports and imports. Thus when trade improved, the Government General’s budget expanded. An increase in commercial exchanges was not as obviously in the interest of the African producer for a simple reason. Dependent as it was upon tariff revenues for the bulk of its income, the Government General was always tempted to increase the duties it levied on African-produced export commodities and on imports. When this happened, Africans were paid less for their produce, and charged inflated prices for any manufactured products they consumedY Given this built-in discrimination against the African producer and consumer, it is entirely possible that African prosperity could have been better fostered through a policy of internal and regional development, rather than through the creation of an export-dependent economy. Dakar never considered this possibility. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 228

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to reader’s goal of understanding how French republican rule was forced onto West Africa — this shows material interests driving the policy, connects to broader dependency-theory historiography on colonial economies.
• SEED: Potential essay angle: the structural incentive by which a colonial administration’s self-funding tariff model guaranteed economic harm to the governed.