In 1926 the exports were valued at 164,895,913 francs and the imports at 164,883,564 francs. The currency con sists of notes of the Banque de la Reunion with a capital of 6,000,000 francs (guaranteed by the government) and nickel token money.
Reunion is regarded practi cally as a department of France. It sends two deputies and one senator to the French legislature, and is governed by laws passed by that body. All inhabitants, not being aliens, enjoy the fran chise, no distinction being made between whites, negroes or mulat toes, all of whom are citizens. At the head of the local administra tion is a governor who is assisted by 0, secretary-general, a pro cureur general, a privy council and a council-general elected by the suffrages of all citizens. The governor has the right of direct corn munication and negotiation with the government of South Africa and all states east of the Cape. The council-general has wide powers, including the fixing of the budget. For administrative purposes the island is divided into two arrondissements, the Wind ward, with five cantons and nine communes, and the Leeward, with four cantons and seven communes. The towns are subject to the French municipal law. The 1926 budget gives receipts as 52,502,932 francs, expenditures 46,076,028 francs.
Reunion is usually said to have been first discovered in April 1513, by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, and his name, or that of Mascarene islands, is still applied to the archipelago of which it forms a part ; but it seems probable that it must be identified with the island of Santa Apollonia discov ered by Diego Fernandes Pereira on Feb. 9, 1507. When in 1638 the island was taken possession of by Captain Gaubert, or Gobert, of Dieppe, it was uninhabited ; a more formal annexation in the name of Louis XIII. was effected in 1643; and in 1649 Etienne de Flacourt repeated the ceremony. He also changed the name of the
island from Mascarenhas to Bourbon. By decree of the Con vention in 1793, Bourbon in turn gave place to Reunion, and though during the empire this was discarded in favour of Ile Bona parte, and at the Restoration people naturally went back to Bour bon, Reunion has been the official designation since 1848.
The first inhabitants were a dozen mutineers deported from Madagascar by Pronis, but they remained only three years (1646-49). Other colonists went thither of their own will in 1654 and 1662. In 1664 the Compagnie des lades orientales de Mada gascar, to whom a concession of the island was granted, initiated a regular colonization scheme. Their first commandant was Etienne Regnault, who in 1689 received from the French crown the title of governor. The growth of the colony was very slow, and in 1717.there were only some 2,000 inhabitants. It is recorded that they lived on excellent terms with the pirates, who from 1684 frequented the neighbouring seas for many years. The French Revolution effected little change in the island and occa sioned no bloodshed ; the colonists successfully resisted the at tempts of the Convention to abolish slavery, which continued until 1848 (when over 6o,000 negroes were freed), the slave trade being, however, abolished in 1817. In 1809 the British attacked the island, and the French were forced to capitulate on July 8, i8To: the island remained in the possession of Great Britain until April 1815, when it was restored to France. From that period the island has had no exterior troubles. The Third Republic con ferred the full rights of French citizenship including the vote on the negro population in 187o. The immigration of coolies be gan in 186o, but in 1882 the Government of India prohibited the further emigration of labourers from that country. Reunion suffered from disastrous cyclones in 1879 and