Metropolitan indifference allowed Dakar’s economic doctrine to ossify before 1914

Evidence

Only in the 1920’s did Dakar widen its definition of mise en valeur, to emphasize more than railroads and port construction. One important reason for this persistence of Roume’s material definition of civilization was that only the colonial lobby in Paris had a sustained interest in overseas development during the first decade of the twentieth century. After the initial decisions to create and reform the Government General, pressure from the metropolitan government for quick results in West Africa waned. Without such pressure, Dakar was not forced to rethink its economic strategy for developing the federation’s resources. In the context of this relative indifference, any delay in increasing exports could simply be attributed to the delays in building transportation and medical infrastructure. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 246

Categorization

• XREF: Offers a comparative lens for how metropolitan neglect shapes colonial policy elsewhere.