French colonial officials contrasted their mass-conciliating rule against Britain’s preserved aristocratic systems

Evidence

What have the English done? They have allowed to persist, under the semblances of a doctrinaire liberalism, all that is oppressive in the feudal regime that was in place when they arrived. This fundamentally aristocratic regime, which did not allow them to recruit even a twentieth of the men we were able to during the war, is now condemned by all important colonial figures [because it risks alienating the mass of African subjects]. … Less liberal in its proclamations, but more democratic in terms of its effects, our policy consisted, in contrast, in preserving for ourselves alone all sovereignty. In conciliating the masses, however, we alienated the sympathy of the dispossessed chiefs, who were reduced to simple intermediaries. Is there not room for a mixed policy that simultaneously respects the amour propre of the ruling classes and the essential rights of the masses ? — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 661

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader goal of understanding how republicanism was imposed on West Africa — this shows French officials explicitly framing their empire as differing from British feudalism-preserving rule.