Chapter XVIII: Preface: To the Seventh Volume (17)

Serious accusations of oppression and barbarity in the
exploiting of the natural wealth of the so-called Independent
Congo State, under the administration of its royal proprietor,
King Leopold, of Belgium, were beginning to be made a dozen
years ago, as will be seen by reference to the subject in
Volume VI. of this work. The King and the companies which
operated in the region under his grants were reputed to be
taking enormous profits from it. Of one of those
concessionaire companies, sometimes referred to as the A. B.
I. R. Co. and sometimes as "the Abir," it was stated in 1901
that its £40,000 of shares could have been sold for
£2,160,000, and that half of its profits went to Leopold. But,
as was said later by a member of the British Parliament, who
wrote on the subject in one of the reviews, "meanwhile Europe
was becoming aware of the price that was being paid in Africa
for these profits in Belgium. Travellers, missionaries of
various nationalities, administrators in the neighbouring
territories belonging to England and France, sent home graphic
reports of the cruel oppression that was being practised on
the helpless population. In England especially, through the
efforts of Sir Charles Dilke, of Mr. Fox-Bourne, the secretary
of the Aborigines Protection Society, of Mr. E. D. Morel and
of other disinterested men, public opinion was informed of the
truth. In May, 1903, a resolution, which I had the honor of
moving in the House of Commons, calling upon the Government to
take action with a view to the abatement of the evils
prevalent in the Congo Free State, was accepted by Mr. Balfour
and unanimously passed. A diplomatic correspondence ensued
between the two governments. The British Consul in the Lower
Congo, Mr. Roger Casement, was sent on a tour of inquiry into
the interior, and his lengthy and detailed report fully
confirmed—in some respect extending—the indictment that had
been drawn. A Congo Reform Association was founded, and
immediately secured influential support. … At last King
Leopold, pressed by the despatches of the British Government
and bowing to the storm of public opinion, yielded so far as
to authorise further inquiry into the charges that had been
made. The investigation by an International Commission, which
had been proposed, he rejected. He nominated three
Commissioners of his selection, one a legal officer in the
service of the Belgian Government, one a judge in the service
of the Congo State, and the third a Swiss jurist of repute. In
October, 1904, the Commission reached the Congo. It stayed for
five months and made an extended journey into the interior.
After an unexplained delay of eight months its report was
published on the 6th of November of this year [1905]. …

"Had the report embodied an acquittal of the Congo State it
would not, under the circumstances, have been surprising. The
Commissioners, however, have to a great degree risen superior
to their natural prepossessions. … It is most regrettable …
that they present no minutes of the evidence taken before
them—a circumstance which deprives the report of actuality
and force, and prevents outside observers from drawing their
own conclusions from the facts which had been ascertained. But
the inquiry was painstaking. The case was fairly tried. The
judgment is an honest judgment.

"Being honest, it is necessarily a condemnation. The Belgian
defenders of the Congo Government, who were led by a
conception of patriotic duty as profoundly false as that of
the anti-Dreyfusards in France to deny everything and to meet
the critics merely with unceasing torrents of abuse, now have
their answer. A tribunal, not of our choosing, selected by the
defendant in their cause, has shown that those who denounced
Congo misrule were in the right, that the atrocities were not
imaginary, that a cruel oppression of the natives has been
proceeding unchecked for years."

_Herbert Samuel,
The Congo State
(Contemporary Review, December, 1905)._

Before this report appeared many witnesses had testified for
and against the impeached Government and its commercial
monopoly of the Congo State. Atrocities of slaughter,
mutilation and flogging, committed by the soldiery, the
sentries and other extortioners of a labor tax from the
helpless natives, were asserted and denied. It is best,
perhaps, to drop these blackest counts from the Congo
indictment, because of the controversy over them; and enough
remains in the Report of the King’s own Commission of Inquiry,
and in general conditions which are flagrantly in evidence, to
convict King Leopold and his agents of soulless rapacity, in
their treatment of the vast African country that was entrusted
to him by the Conference of Powers assembled at Berlin in
1884-1885.

There is great weight of meaning, for example, in a few words
that were written, in January, 1903, by Lord Cromer, while
returning from a long trip up the Nile, in which his steamer
passed along about eighty miles of Congolese shore. Before
reaching that border of Leopold’s domain he had traversed 1100
miles of the country lately wrested by the British from
dervishes and slave dealers, where, he remarks, "it might well
have been expected that much time would be required to inspire
confidence in the intentions of the new Government." But,
"except in the uninhabitable ‘Sudd’ region," he wrote,
"numerous villages are dotted along the banks of the river.
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The people, far from flying at the approach of white men, as
was formerly the case, run along the banks, making signs for
the steamer to stop. It is clear that the Baris, Shilluks, and
Dinkas place the utmost trust and confidence in the British
officers with whom they are brought in contact. …

"The contrast when once Congolese territory is entered is
remarkable. From the frontier to Gondokoro is about 80 miles.
The proper left, or western, bank of the river is Belgian. The
opposite bank is either under the Soudanese or the Uganda
Government. There are numerous islands, and as all these are
under British rule—for the thalweg which, under Treaty, is the
Belgian frontier, skirts the western bank of the river—I
cannot say that I had an opportunity of seeing a full 80 miles
of Belgian territory. At the same time, I saw a good deal, and
I noticed that, whereas there were numerous villages and huts
on the eastern bank and on the islands, on the Belgian side
not a sign of a village existed. Indeed, I do not think that
any one of our party saw a single human being in Belgian
territory, except the Belgian officers and men and the wives
and children of the latter. Moreover not a single native was
to be seen either at Kiro or Lado. I asked the Swedish officer
at Kiro whether he saw much of the natives. He replied in the
negative, adding that the nearest Bari village was situated at
some distance in the interior. The Italian officer at Lado, in
reply to the same question, stated that the nearest native
village was seven hours distant. The reason of all this is
obvious enough. The Belgians are disliked. The people fly from
them, and it is no wonder they should do so, for I am informed
that the soldiers are allowed full liberty to plunder, and
that payments are rarely made for supplies. The British
officers wander, practically alone, over most parts of the
country, either on tours of inspection or on shooting
expeditions. I understand that no Belgian officer can move
outside the settlements without a strong guard."

This is in line with some parts of the experience of Mr.
Casement, the British Consular Officer referred to in the
article quoted above, who travelled for about ten weeks on the
Upper Congo in 1903, and whose report of what he saw includes
such accounts as the following, of conditions around Lake
Matumba:

"Each village I visited around the lake, save that of Q. and
one other, had been abandoned by its inhabitants. To some of
these villages the people have only just returned; to others
they are only now returning, In one I found the bare and burnt
poles of what had been dwellings left standing, and at another
—that of R—the people had fled at the approach of my steamer,
and despite the loud cries of my native guides on board,
nothing could induce them to return, and it was impossible to
hold any intercourse with them. At the three succeeding
villages I visited beyond R., in traversing the lake towards
the south, the inhabitants all fled at the approach of the
steamer, and it was only when they found whose the vessel was
that they could be induced to return."

An incident related by Mr. Casement is this:

"Steaming up a small tributary of the Lulongo, I arrived,
unpreceded by any rumour of my coming, at the village of A. In
an open shed I found two sentries of the La Lulanga Company
guarding fifteen native women, five of whom had infants at the
breast, and three of whom were about to become mothers. The
chief of these sentries, a man called S—who was bearing a
double-barrelled shot-gun, for which he had a belt of
cartridges—at once volunteered an explanation of the reason
for these women’s detention. Four of them, he said, were
hostages who were being held to insure the peaceful settlement
of a dispute between two neighbouring towns, which had already
cost the life of a man. … The remaining eleven women, whom he
indicated, he said he had caught and was detaining as
prisoners to compel their husbands to bring in the right
amount of india-rubber required of them on next market day.
When I asked if it was a woman’s work to collect india-rubber,
he said, ‘No; that, of course, it was man’s work.’ ‘Then why
do you catch the women and not the men?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you
see,’ was the answer, ‘if I caught and kept the men, who would
work the rubber? But if I catch their wives, the husbands are
anxious to have them home again, and so the rubber is brought
in quickly and quite up to the mark.’ When I asked what would
become of these women if their husbands failed to bring in the
right quantity of rubber on the next market day, he said at
once that then they would be kept there until their husbands
had redeemed them."

_Parliamentary Papers, Africa,
Number 1 (1904), Cd. 1933._

But the facts which condemn the Congo administration most
conclusively are found in the report of the Commission of
Inquiry appointed by King Leopold himself,—especially in what
it represents of the heartless oppression of the labor tax, or
labor imposed on the natives, in their compulsory carrying of
goods or collection of rubber, food and wood, for the State
and for the companies that operate under the King’s grants. As
to the labor tax exacted in food, for example, the Commission
expresses itself as follows:

"The decree fixes at forty hours per month the work which each
native owes to the State. This time, considered as a maximum,
is certainly not excessive, especially if one takes account of
the fact that the work ought to be remunerated; but as in the
immense majority of cases … it is not precisely the work which
is demanded of the native, but rather a quantity of products
equivalent to forty hours of work, the criterion of time
disappears in reality and is replaced by an equivalent
established by the Commissioner of the district after diverse
methods. …

"_Chikwangue_ (kwanga)is nothing but manioc bread. … The
preparation of this food requires many operations: the
clearing of the forest, the planting of manioc, the digging up
of the root and its transformation into _chikwangue_,
which comprises the operations of separating the fibers and
stripping the bark, pulverizing, washing, making it into
bundles, and cooking it. All these operations, except clearing
the land, fall to the women. The _chikwangues_ so
prepared are carried by the natives to the neighboring post
and served for the food supply of the personnel of the
State—soldiers and laborers. … As the _chikwangue_ keeps
only a few days, the native, even by redoubling his activity,
cannot succeed in freeing himself from his obligations for any
length of time.
{139}
The requirement, even if it does not take all his time,
oppresses him continually by the weight of its recurrent
demands, which deprive the tax of its true character and
transform it into an incessant _corvée_. … Doubtless the
adage, ‘time is money,’ cannot be applied to the natives of the
Congo; it is none the less inadmissible that a taxpayer should
be obliged to travel over ninety-three miles to carry to the
place of collection a tax which represents about the value of
twenty-nine cents. …

"Natives inhabiting the environs of Lulonga were forced to
journey in canoes to Nouvelle-Anvers, which represents a
distance of forty to fifty miles, every two weeks, to carry
their fish; and taxpayers have been seen to submit to
imprisonment for delays which were perhaps not chargeable to
them, if we take into account the considerable distances to be
covered periodically to satisfy the requirements of the tax."

As applied to the collection of rubber, the so-called labor
tax was found by the commission to consume so much of the time
of the natives subjected to it that it practically made slaves
of them, and nothing less.

When the abused native is pretendedly paid for his labor or
its product, it is by some trifle in metal or flimsy woven
stuff, which costs the State and its tributary companies next
to nothing and is next to worthless to the recipient.

And not only does the State exercise over the unfortunate
subjects that were delivered to it an authority of Government
which appears to be little else than a power of extortion, but
it has taken all their lands from them, substantially, and
left them next to nothing on which to perform any labor for
themselves. It has decreed to itself the ownership of all land
not included in the native villages or not under cultivation.
Concerning which decree the Commission remarks:

"As the greater part of the land in the Congo has never been
under cultivation, this interpretation gives to the State a
proprietary right, absolute and exclusive, to almost all the
land, and as a consequence it can grant to itself all the
product of the soil and prosecute as robbers those who gather
the smallest fruit and as accomplices those who buy the same.
… It thus happens sometimes that not only have the natives
been prohibited from moving their villages, but they have been
refused permission to go, even for a time, to a neighboring
village without a special permit."

In the summer of 1903 the British Government was moved to
address a formal communication to all the Powers which had
been parties to the Act of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885,
whereby the Congo State was created and entrusted to King
Leopold, asking them to consider whether the system of
government and of trade monopoly established in that State was
in conformity with the provisions of the Act. The British
Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, in his despatch (August 8,
1903), rehearsed at length the charges that were brought
against the Congo administration, concerning its extortion of
labor from the natives by a method "but little different from
that formerly employed to obtain slaves," saying: "His
Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent
these accusations may be true; but they have been so
repeatedly made, and have received such wide credence, that it
is no longer possible to ignore them, and the question has now
arisen, whether the Congo State can be considered to have
fulfilled the special pledges, given under the Berlin Act, to
watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and to care
for their moral and material advancement."

At the same time, the dispatch called the attention of the
Powers to the question of rights of trade in the Congo,
saying: "Article I of the Berlin Act provides that the trade
of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom in the basin of
the Congo; and Article V provides that no Power which
exercises sovereign rights in the basin shall be allowed to
grant therein a monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of
trade. In the opinion of His Majesty’s Government, the system
of trade now existing in the Independent State of the Congo is
not in harmony with these provisions. … In these
circumstances, His Majesty’s Government consider that the time
has come when the Powers parties to the Berlin Act should
consider whether the system of trade now prevailing in the
Independent State is in harmony with the provisions of the
Act; and, in particular, whether the system of making grants
of vast areas of territory is permissible under the Act if the
effect of such grants is in practice to create a monopoly of
trade."

_Parliamentary Papers, Africa,
Number 14 (1903), Cd. 1809._

CONGO STATE: A. D. 1904.
Feeling in Belgium concerning the charges of oppression and
inhumanity to the natives.

See (in this Volume)
BELGIUM: A. D. 1904.

CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
Reform Decrees and their small effect.
Continued reports of rapacious exploitation.
Concession secured by American capitalists.
Annexation of the State by Belgium.
Recognition of the annexation withheld by
Great Britain and the United States.

Apparently the endeavor of the British Government to set in
motion some action of the Powers which had been parties to the
creation of the Congo State, for the purpose of ascertaining
whether the provisions of the Berlin Act were being complied
with in the administration of that great trust, had no
practical result. During the next two years the Congo
Government was persistent in denying and attempting to refute
some parts of the reports sent home by British consular
officers in the Congo; but after the publication of the report
of its own investigating Commission, in 1905, there seems to
have been more reticence observed. In June, 1906, a series of
new decrees, supposed to embody the recommendations of the
Reforms Commission, was sanctioned by the King. But the
Consuls who reported to London from the Congo country do not
seem to have found the wretched natives much relieved by these
decrees. Vice-Consul Armstrong, writing from Boma December,
1907, after a prolonged journey through rubber-collecting
regions, declared his conviction that "the people worked from
twenty to twenty-five days a month" to satisfy their labor
tax. He added:

"The improvement that has been made by the application of the
Reform Decrees of June 1906 is solely in the withdrawal of
armed sentries, a reform which the serious decimation of the
population by the sentries demanded. … I saw nothing which led
me to view the occupation of this country in the light of an
Administration.
{140}
The undertakings of the Government are solely commercial, with
a sufficient administrative power to insure the safety of its
personnel and the success of its enterprise. … The
following is an estimate of the profits of the State on their
rubber tax. I take the village of N’gongo as being a large
one, and one of the few villages that supply the amount
actually assessed:—

Amount assessed yearly. 1,440 kilograms of rubber. £ s. d. 1,440 kilograms of rubber at 10 fr. 576 0 0 Amount paid to natives at 50 c. per kilogram 28 16 0

"I calculate the rubber at 10 fr. per kilogram, the value
placed upon it by the State in the Commercial Report issued
this year. The market value in Antwerp is from 12 fr. to 13
fr. per kilogram. From this amount of 576£. must be deducted
the cost of transport, which cannot be more than 2 fr. per
kilogram rendered at Antwerp, so that the net profits derived
from this one village would be a little more than 456£. per
annum. One hundred and twenty natives, together with their
wives and children, which would bring the population of the
town to about 400 souls, share this amount of 28£ 16s., and as
this is paid in cloth at 7½d. per yard and salt at 1s. 7½d.
per kilogram, it is evident that they cannot receive very much
each, and that they complain of their remuneration."

These were not the only official witnesses now testifying to
the barbarities of commercial exploitation that were
perpetrated in the Congo country under pretences of
administering the Government of a State. Reports to the same
effect were coming to the Government of the United States from
its Consuls in the Congo. Consul-General C. R. Slocum wrote on
the 1st of December, 1906, to the Department of State at
Washington:

"I have the honour to report that I find the Congo Free State,
under the present regime, to be nothing but a vast commercial
enterprise for the exploitation of the products of the
country, particularly that of ivory and rubber. Admitted by
Belgian officials and other foreigners here, the State, as I
find it, is not open to trade in the intended sense of article
5 of the Berlin Act under which the State was formed."

A year later, the succeeding Consul-General of the United
States in the Congo State, Mr. James A. Smith, made a similar
report:

"In excluding the native," he wrote, "from any proprietary
right in the only commodities he possessed which would serve
as a trade medium—that is, the products of the soil—and in
claiming for itself and granting to a few concessionary
companies in which it holds an interest exclusive ownership of
these products, the Administration, in its commercial
capacity, has effectively shut the door to free trade and
created a vast monopoly in all articles the freedom of buying
and selling which alone could form a proper basis for
legitimate trade transactions between the native and
independent purchasers. Competition, by which alone can a
healthy condition of trade be maintained, has been entirely
eliminated. The Government is but one tremendous commercial
organization; its administrative machinery is worked to bar
out all outside trade and to absolutely control for its own
benefit and the concessionary companies the natural resources
of the country."

In the same report Mr. Smith gave details of an experiment he
had made, in conjunction with the _chef de secteur_ at
Yambata, to test the truth of the assertions made by the
natives as to the length of time necessary to gather the
rubber which they are compelled to furnish. The place for the
experiment was selected by the _chef de secteur_, and he
chose the five natives who were employed in the experiment,
and who were promised rewards as an incentive to do their
best. The men worked for four hours, and although Mr. Smith
vouches for the fact that they did not lose a minute, they
only succeeded in gathering 650 grammes. From this, as Mr.
Smith argues, the amount of time they would have to spend in
collecting the rubber tax works out at 93 hours a month, or,
counting eight hours a day, at 140 days a year. This did not
include the time spent in travelling to and from the
rubber-bearing districts.

Before this time, American interest in the Congo State had
become more than humanitarian, and more than a commercial
interest in the general opportunities of trade; for heavy
American capitalists had secured concessions from King Leopold
in a large territory for the development of railways, rubber
production and mines. The fact was announced in the fall of
1906, and the names of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Thomas F.
Ryan, Harry Payne Whitney, Edward B. Aldrich and the Messrs.
Guggenheim were mentioned as prominent in the group to which
the grant was made.

Under the Convention of 1890 between King Leopold and the
Congo State, as one party, and the Kingdom of Belgium as the
other, it became the right of the latter, on the expiration of
ten years, in 1900, to annex the Congo State to itself.

See, in Volume VI. of this work,
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1900.

The right was not then exercised; but the question of taking
over the sovereignty of that great African domain came under
warm discussion in Belgium before many years, and, finally, in
1908, it reached the point of a keen negotiation of terms with
the King, attended by lively conflicts in the Belgian
Chambers. While the question was thus pending in Belgium, the
British Government took occasion to express its views to the
Belgian Government, as to the obligations which such an
annexation would involve. This was done on the 27th of March,
1908, in a despatch from the Foreign Minister, Sir Edward
Grey, communicating an extended "Memorandum respecting
Taxation and Currency in the Congo Free State." The language
of the despatch, in part, was as follows:

"His Majesty’s Government fully recognize that the choice of
the means by which the administration of the Congo may be
brought into line by the Berlin Act rests exclusively with
Belgium. Nevertheless, while disclaiming all idea of
interference, His Majesty’s Government feel that in fairness
they should leave the Belgian Government in no doubt that in
their opinion the existing administration of the Congo State
has not fulfilled the objects for which the State was
originally recognized, or the conditions of Treaties, and that
changes are therefore required, which should effect the
following objects:
1. Relief of the natives from excessive taxation.
2. The grant to the natives of sufficient land to ensure their
ability to obtain not only the food they require, but also
sufficient produce of the soil to enable them to buy and sell
as in other European Colonies.
3. The possibility for traders whatever their nationality may
be to acquire plots of land of reasonable dimensions in any
part of the Congo for the erection of factories so as to
enable them to establish direct trade relations with the
natives. …

{141}

"Taking the three points enumerated above in order, it appears
to His Majesty’s Government that—

"1. As regards the question of taxation in labour, the abuses
to which the system has given rise have only been rendered
possible by the absence of a proper standard of value. They
believe, therefore, that the only sure and efficacious means
of precluding the existence of such abuses in the future is
the introduction of currency throughout the State at the
earliest possible date. Both the Reports of the Commission of
Inquiry and the experience of His Majesty’s Consular officers
agree in the conclusion that the native has learnt the use of
money, and that currency would be welcomed by all classes,
native and European alike.

"2. The natives in the concessionary areas should not be
compelled, by either direct or indirect means, to render their
labour to the Companies without remuneration. The introduction
of currency should contribute greatly to the protection of the
native against the illicit and excessive exactions on the part
of private individuals. Such protection, however, cannot be
adequately secured unless the latter be compelled to pay the
native in specie at a fair rate to be fixed by law.

"3. They would urge that a large increase should be made in
the land allotted to the natives."

The exceptional failure of the Congo State, among African
colonies, to introduce the use of currency in transactions
with the natives, and the connection of this failure with the
state of things existing there, is discussed at length in the
Memorandum, with a practical summing up in these sentences:

"The Secretaries-General said the native in the Congo had no
specie. True, but why has he no specie? Because, as already
explained, during the twenty-three years that the Congo State
has been in existence no serious attempt, in spite of all
assertions to the contrary, has ever been made by the State to
introduce currency on a sufficiently large scale. In every
other European Colony in Africa has the native come to learn
the practical value of a medium of exchange. What are the
reasons that the Congo State should stand in an exceptional
position in this respect? They are unfortunately obvious
enough. The truth is that it is precisely owing to the absence
of a proper standard of value that the Congo Government and
the Concessionary Companies have been able to abuse the system
of taxation in labour, and realize enormous profits out of the
incessant labour wrung from the population in the guise of
taxation."

This communication from Great Britain to the Belgian
Government was followed soon (in April) by memoranda from the
Government of the United States, setting forth the hopes and
expectations of administrative reform with which it
contemplated the proposed annexation of the Congo State.

A few months later the treaty of annexation was agreed upon,
and the annexation consummated by an Act of the Belgian
Parliament, promulgated on the 20th of October, 1908. To an
announcement of the fact by the Belgian Minister at
Washington, Secretary Root replied at considerable length, in
a communication which bears the date of June 11, 1909: "The
Government of the United States," said the Secretary, "has
observed with much interest the progress of the negotiations
looking to such a transfer, in the expectation that under the
control of Belgium the condition of the natives might be
beneficially improved and the engagements of the treaties to
which the United States is a party, as well as the high aims
set forth in the American memoranda of April 7 and 16, 1908,
and declared in the Belgium replies thereto, might be fully
realized.

"The United States would also be gratified by the assurance
that the Belgian Government will consider itself specifically
bound to discharge the obligations assumed by the Independent
State of the Congo in the Brussels Convention of July 2, 1890,
an assurance which the expressions already made by the
Government of Belgium in regard to its own course as a party
to that convention leave no doubt is in entire accordance with
the sentiments of that Government. Among the particular
clauses of the Brussels Convention which seem to the United
States to be specially relevant to existing conditions in the
Congo region are the clauses of Article II., which include
among the objects of the convention:

"‘To diminish intestine wars between tribes by means of
arbitration; to initiate them in agricultural labour and in
the industrial arts so as to increase their welfare; to raise
them to civilization and bring about the extinction of
barbarous customs. …

"‘To give aid and protection to commercial enterprises; to
watch over their legality by especially controlling contracts
for service with natives; and to prepare the way for the
foundation of permanent centres of cultivation and of
commercial settlements.’

"The United States has been forced to the conclusion that in
several respects the system inaugurated by the Independent
State of the Congo has, in its practical operation, worked out
results inconsistent with these conventional obligations and
calling for very substantial and even radical changes in order
to attain conformity therewith." Moreover, it renders nugatory
the provisions of the successive declarations and conventions,
cited by the Secretary, which have given such rights in the
Congo State to citizens of the United States and others as
must be maintained.

"It should always be remembered," wrote Mr. Root, "that the
basis of the sovereignty of the Independent State of the Congo
over all its territory was in the treaties made by the native
Sovereigns who ceded the territory for the use and benefit of
free States established and being established there under the
care and supervision of the International Association, so that
the very nature of the title forbids the destruction of the
tribal rights upon which it rests without securing to the
natives an enjoyment of their land which shall be a full and
adequate equivalent for the tribal rights destroyed."

Referring to a statement made in the Belgian reply given to
his memorandum of April 16, which he quotes as in these
words:—

{142}

"When it annexes the possessions of the Independent State
Belgium will inherit its obligations as well as its rights; it
will be able to fulfil all the engagements made with the
United States by the declarations of April 22, 1884"—Mr. Root
closes his letter with these remarks:

"It would be gratifying to the United States to know that the
last clause of the statement just quoted is not intended to
confine the rights of the United States in the Independent
State to the declarations of the Commercial Association which
preceded the creation of the Congo State as a sovereign power,
but includes the conventional rights conferred upon the United
States by the treaty concluded with the Independent State
immediately after its recognition.

"In the absence of a fuller understanding on all these points,
I confine myself for the present to acknowledging your note of
November 4 last and taking note of the announcement therein
made."

Thus no recognition was given to the Belgian annexation.
Recognition was held in abeyance, awaiting further information
and evidence of reform in the administration of the Congo
State. And this is the attitude assumed by the British
Government, which waited long and with growing impatience for
assurances from Belgium, with proceedings that would give sign
of making them good. On the 24th of February, 1909, the
subject came up in Parliament, with assertions that
"oppression of the natives was still going on just as before
the annexation," and that "Great Britain had waited for months
while the cruelties against which she had protested still
continued." In the debate, Sir Charles Dilke referred to the
harmony of action in the matter by the United States and Great
Britain, and expressed his conviction that "the cooperation of
two such powerful Governments in the cause of humanity would
be irresistible." Sir Edward Grey, speaking for the Ministry,
said:

"I am glad that in the course of the debate it has been
emphasized that this attitude is not ours alone, but that the
United States has spoken with equal emphasis and taken up the
same position. I am sorry that no other Power has taken up the
same position so strongly; but as there is only one Power
which has declared itself so definitely on the question as
ourselves, I should like to say that I am glad it is the
United States."

Alluding to a remark made by one of the speakers in the
debate, that the Government might have prevented the
annexation of the State by Belgium, Sir Edward said:

"I do not think we should have prevented the annexation, but
in any case I should not have tried to prevent the annexation.
And for this reason among others—that if Belgium was not going
to take the Congo State in hand and put it right, who was? I
have never been able to answer that question. Certainly not
ourselves, because we have always denied the intention of
assuming any responsibility over an enormous tract of land
where we have sufficient responsibility already."

The Foreign Secretary concluded his speech by saying:

"If Belgium makes the administration of the Congo humane and
brings it into accord, in practice and spirit, with the
administration which exists in our own and neighbouring
African colonies, no country will more cordially welcome that
state of things than this or more warmly congratulate Belgium.
But we cannot commit ourselves to countersign, so to say, by
recognition a second time, the system of administration which
has existed under the old regime."

Again, in May, the question came up in Parliament, with
impatient criticism of the Government for not taking
peremptory measures to compel a reformation of Belgian rule in
the Congo State, one speaker suggesting a "peaceful blockade"
of the mouth of the Congo. Sir Edward Grey replied:

"If this question were rashly managed it might make a European
question compared to which those which we have had to deal
with in the last few months might be child’s play. Take, for
instance, the question of peaceful blockade. It is no good
talking of peaceful blockade. Blockade is blockade. It is the
use of force. If you are to have blockade you must be prepared
to go to war, and a blockade of the mouth of the Congo means
blockading a river which is not the property of the Congo or
Belgian Government. They have one bank of the river. It is a
river which by international treaty must be opened to
navigation, and if you are to blockade to any effect you must
be prepared to stop every ship going in or out of the Congo,
whether under the French, Belgian, German, or whatever flag it
is. Surely if you are going to pledge yourself to take steps
of that kind, and to accept the responsibility for them, it is
not too much to say that you must be prepared to raise a
European question which would be of the gravest kind. I do not
say there are not circumstances which might justify a question
of that kind, but do not let the House think that by smooth
words, such as by applying the adjective ‘peaceful’ to
blockade, you are going to minimize what will be the ultimate
consequences of the step you are taking."

CONGO STATE: A. D. 1909 (October).
Programme of reforms promised by the Belgian Government.

The programme of long promised reforms to be instituted by the
Belgian Government in its administration of the now annexed
Congo State was announced in the Belgian Chamber on the 28th
of October, 1909, by the Minister for the Colonies, M. Renkin.
"He repeated his solemn assurance that the charges of cruelty
or oppression made against the Belgian Colonial Administration
were false. He had questioned missionaries, officials, chiefs,
and other natives during his visit, and heard nothing to
justify the accusation. Individual breaches of the law might
possibly have occurred, but every abuse brought to the notice
of the authorities was immediately made the object of inquiry.

"It was useless, he said, to refer to the past; the situation
had been radically altered by the annexation. As regards the
land system, the assignment of vacant lands to the State was
juridically unassailable, but they must also have regard to
the development of the natives. The natives would therefore be
granted the right to take the produce of the soil in the
Domain. This would be accomplished in three stages. On July 1,
1910, the Lower Congo, Stanley Pool, Ubangi, Bangala, Kwango,
Kasai, Katanga, the southern portion of the Eastern Province,
Aruwimi, and the banks of the river as far as Stanleyville
would be opened to freedom of trade. On July 1, 1911, the
Domain of the Crown, and on July 1, 1912, the Welle district
would also be thrown open. Furthermore, the Government would
levy taxes in money, and the system of the provisioning of the
agents would be abolished."

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M. Renkin said furthermore that in regard to the territories
held by _concessionnaires_ in the Congo the Government
would make an investigation with a view to ascertaining
whether it would not be advisable to make fresh arrangements
in agreement with the persons interested.

Writing from Brussels a mouth later, an English correspondent
represents the Belgian Reformers, who had most bitterly
denounced the atrocities of the Leopold regime in the Congo
State, as believing that M. Renkin's scheme is on the whole a
reasonable and satisfactory scheme, and above all a practical
scheme, that the Belgian Government are sincerely determined
to carry it through, and that, even if there were any
sufficient reason for doubting their sincerity, the Belgian
nation is in earnest and has the means of enforcing the
execution of the reforms by the exercise of the Parliamentary
control with which it is now for the first time invested over
the affairs of the Congo as a consequence of annexation.

On the other hand, English opinion, which had been roused to
much heat on the Congo question, is far from satisfied with
the Belgian proposals, and criticises them with a sharpness
which the Belgians resent.

----------CONGO STATE: End--------

----------CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Start--------

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Australia:
Undertakings of Irrigation and Forestry.

During a brief visit to the United States in 1902, Sir Edmund
Barton, then Premier of the Commonwealth of Australia,
contributed to _The Independent_ an article on "Australia
and her Problems," in which he wrote:

"Another great problem with which we are struggling is that of
irrigation, and a joint irrigation scheme is afoot for using
the waters of the Murray, our greatest river, to fertilize
lands in New South Wales and Victoria. The Murray forms the
boundary of those two States and afterward flows through South
Australia. It is to the interest of New South Wales and
Victoria to use the waters of the Murray for irrigation
purposes, and it is to the interest of South Australia to use
the Murray for navigation. We hope to harmonize those
interests and are working to that end.

"Just before I left Australia I attended a conference, held on
the border, between representatives of the various States as a
result of which each has appointed a hydraulic engineer to a
joint commission on irrigation. These will make an
investigation and report their opinion in regard to the best
practicable system for conserving, storing and distributing
the Murray’s waters without interfering with its navigation.
We have good reason to believe that by means of a system of
locks and weirs it is quite possible to irrigate a very large
extent of dry country by means of the Murray without injuring
its navigability. Later we will take up the problem of using
the waters of the Darling in a similar way. It is a very long
river, which during the rainy season sends an immense Volume
of water into the Murray.

"Another of our problems is in regard to forestry. We have
planted some trees but not nearly enough of them, and cannot
yet tell anything about results. Along with this tree
planting, also, denudation of our timber has been going on,
for Australian hard woods, being impervious to water, are now
used all over the world for street paving purposes. Great harm
has been done, and the waste is still going on, for our
national Government cannot interfere in the matter, and the
land owners are in many instances reckless. The remedy must
come from the common sense of the people."

Since the above was written, progress has been made in
carrying out the projects of irrigation, as was stated in a
speech by Lord Northcote after his return to England, in the
autumn of 1909, from five years of service as Governor-General
of Australia. "Both in New South Wales and Victoria," he said,
"very large irrigation works are in progress, and will be
completed in a very short time, adding enormously to the
acreage of land fit for cultivation."

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Canada:
The Dominion Forest Reserves Act.
Irrigation in the Northwest.

A Dominion Act of 1906, thus short-titled, provides as
follows:

"All Dominion lands within the respective boundaries of the
reserves mentioned in the schedule to this Act are hereby
withdrawn from sale, settlement and occupancy under the
provisions of the Dominion Lands Act, or of any other Act, or
of any regulations made under the said Act or any such Act,
with respect to mines or mining or timber or timber licenses
or leases or any other matter whatsoever; and after the
passing of this Act no Dominion lands within the boundaries of
the said reserves shall be sold, leased or otherwise disposed
of, or be located or settled upon, and no person shall use or
occupy any part of such lands, except under the provisions of
this Act or of regulations made thereunder."

The schedule referred to lists 21 Forest Reserves in British
Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. They are placed
under the management of the Superintendent of Forestry, for
the maintenance and protection of the growing timber, the
animals and birds in them, the fish in their waters and their
water supply, the Governor in Council to make the needed
regulations.

In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute at London,
England, in January, 1910, Mr. C. W. Peterson, Manager of the
Canadian Pacific Irrigation Colonization Company, gave the
following account of what is being done in the Arid Belt, so
called, near Calgary, in the Canadian Northwest:

"The irrigated land in Alberta and Saskatchewan nearly
equalled half of the total irrigated area of the United
States. In the year 1894 the Dominion Government withdrew from
sale and homestead entry a tract of land containing some
millions of acres located east of the city of Calgary, along
the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The object of
that reservation was to provide for the construction,
ultimately, of an irrigation scheme to cover the fertile Bow
River Valley. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company undertook
to construct the gigantic irrigation system in question, and
selected as part of its land grant a block comprising three
million acres of the best agricultural lands. It had now been
opened for colonization, and this project—the greatest of the
kind on the American continent—was being pushed to its
completion. The tract had an average width of forty miles from
north to south, and extended eastwards from Calgary 150 miles."

{144}

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Egypt: A. D. 1909.
Completion of the Esneh Barrage.

An important addition to the irrigation works in Egypt,
supplementing the great dam at Assouan and the Assiout
barrage, was completed in February, 1909, when the Esneh
barrage was formally opened, on the 9th of that month. Esneh
is a town of some 25,000 inhabitants, situated in Upper Egypt,
on the west bank of the Nile, and the work now completed will,
even in the lowest of floods, ensure a plentiful supply of
water to a great tract of land in the Nile valley from Esneh
northwards. In deciding to undertake the construction of this
latest barrage, at a point about 100 miles north of the
Assouan reservoir, the Government were influenced by the great
success of the Assiout barrage, but that work differs from the
new barrage in being designed as a low-water summer regulator,
whereas the function of the Esneh barrage is to hold up the
water in low floods.

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Germany:
The work begun a century ago, and its result.

"Germany, a century ago, faced just such a situation as now
confronts us [the United States]. Then there began the work
which we must now undertake. New forests were planted,
wherever the land was unsuitable for other purposes. This
planting was done year after year, so that each year a new
tract would come to maturity. Forest wardens watched for
fires, and laws forbade careless hunters setting fires in the
woods. Timbermen were forced to gather and burn what twigs
from the slashings could not be used in the still or burned
for charcoal, and broad lanes were left through the forests as
stops for fires. In this way there arose those magnificent
German forests which now return the empire an average net
annual profit of two dollars and a half for each acre, on land
which is otherwise unusable; and, besides, give their services
free for the storage of water and for the retention of the
soil.

"In our own land something of this sort has already been done.
New York has nearly two million acres of land in forest
reserves which are being carefully tended. Pennsylvania has
half as much. Minnesota is already securing considerable
profit from the management of its white pine reserves and is
seeding down large areas; and the other lake states are also
moving, but all this is being done slowly, and lacks much of
the energy and cooperation which should accompany it."

_J. L. Mathews,
The Conservation of our National Resources
(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1908)._

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Great Britain:
Outline of undertakings by the Government in 1909.
Development and Road Improvement Act.

In his Budget speech to the House of Commons April 29, 1909,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. David Lloyd-George, gave
a broad indication of undertakings contemplated by the
Government, in forestry work (afforestation, or
reafforestation) and on other lines directed toward a more
effective preservation and development of the natural
resources of the country. In the afforestation of the waste
lands of the country, he said, "We are far behind every other
civilized country in the world. I have figures which are very
interesting on this point. In Germany, for instance, out of a
total area of 133 million acres, 34 millions, or nearly 26 per
cent., are wooded; in France, out of 130 million acres, 17 per
cent.; even in a small and densely-populated country such as
Belgium, 1,260,000 acres are wooded, or 17 per cent. In the
United Kingdom, on the other hand, out of 77 million acres,
only 3 millions, or 4 per cent., are under wood. Sir Herbert
Maxwell, who has made a study of this question for a good many
years, and whose moderation of statement is beyond challenge,
estimates that, in 1906, ‘eight millions were paid annually in
salaries for the administration, formation, and preservation
of German forests, representing the maintenance of about
200,000 families, or about 1,000,000 souls; and that in
working up the raw material yielded by the forests wages were
earned annually to the amount of 30 millions sterling,
maintaining about 600,000 families, or 3,000,000 souls.’ The
Committee will there perceive what an important element this
is in the labour and employment of a country. Any one who will
take the trouble to search out the census returns will find
that the number of people directly employed in forest work in
this country is only 16,000. And yet the soil and the climate
of this country are just as well adapted for the growth of
marketable trees as that of the States of Germany. Recently we
have been favoured with a striking report of a Royal
Commission, very ably presided over by my honourable friend
the member for Cardiff. A perusal of the names attached to
that report will secure for it respectful and favourable
consideration. It outlines a very comprehensive and
far-reaching scheme for planting the wastes of this country.
The systematic operation which the Commission recommend is a
gigantic one, and, before the Government can commit themselves
to it in all its details, it will require very careful
consideration by a body of experts skilled in forestry. I am
informed by men whom I have consulted, and whose opinion on
this subject I highly value, that there is a good deal of
preliminary work which ought to be undertaken in this country
before the Government could safely begin planting on the large
scale indicated in that report. … I am also told that we
cannot command the services in this country of a sufficient
number of skilled foresters to direct planting. …

"I doubt whether there is a great industrial country in the
world which spends less money directly on work connected with
the development of its resources than we do. Take the case of
agriculture alone. Examine the Budgets of foreign countries—I
have done it with great advantage in other directions—examine
them from this particular point of view, and honourable
members, I think, will be rather ashamed at the contrast
between the wise and lavish generosity of countries much
poorer than ours and the short-sighted and niggardly parsimony
with which we dole out small sums of money for the
encouragement of agriculture in our country. …

"I will tell the House what we propose. There is a certain
amount of money, not very much, spent in this country in a
spasmodic kind of way on what I will call the work of national
development—in light railways, in harbours, in indirect but
very meagre assistance to agriculture.
{145}
I propose to gather all these grants together into one grant
that I propose to call a development grant, and this year to
add a sum of £200,000 to that grant for these purposes. … The
grant will be utilized in the promotion of schemes which have
for their purpose the development of the resources of the
country, and will include such objects as the institution of
schools of forestry, the purchase and preparation of land for
afforestation, the setting up of a number of experimental
forests on a large scale, expenditure upon scientific research
in the interests of agriculture, experimental farms, the
improvement of stock—in respect of which I have had a good
many representations from the agricultural community—the
equipment of agencies for disseminating agricultural
instruction, the encouragement and promotion of co-operation,
the improvement of rural transport so as to make markets more
accessible, the facilitation of all well-considered schemes
and measures for attracting labour back to the land by small
holdings or reclamation of wastes."