THE ECONOMIC RÉGIME OF THE BERLIN ACT
[Sidenote: Early Colonial Policy.]
THE Berlin Act and the economic, that is, domestic, _régime_ which it
sought to establish in the Congo Basin occupied by Germany, France,
Great Britain, Portugal, and the Free State, were, with various
inadequacies and experimental defects, the logical expression of the
drift that political science as applied to the law of nations had
assumed in Europe as early as 1874. Under the operation of the old
_Pacte Colonial_, the policy which prevailed in the colonies of the
European Powers discriminated greatly against the subjects of all
save the mother country. The commercial policy of such colonies was
that of the Power which governed the colonial territory, whether that
was an extension of the home territory or merely a dependency.
[Illustration: Market, near Boma.]
Some marked theoretics freighted the course of international life
as the time approached when exploration had revealed all the
colonising areas which the known earth contained. Europeans and
their descendants already occupied, under different forms of law, as
states, colonies, protectorates, leaseholds, spheres of influence,
over 82 per cent. of the lands of this planet. Those who followed
the evolution of the law of nations were impressed by an African
situation in 1884 which offered opportunity for experimentation with
new, and perhaps more elastic, economic principles for the regulation
of colonial interests in regions where the character of the country,
its natural features, such as waterways and coastal advantages,
and the juxtaposition of several governments, tended to a conflict
detrimental generally to the civilisation of such possessions and
their contributions to the markets of the world.
In the _Annales de l’Institut de Droit International_, vols. iii. and
vii., are to be found the various resolutions of Prof. Égide Arntz
relative to practical and co-operative jurisdiction in the Congo
Basin. These were offered on September 7, 1883, at the Munich meeting
of the Institute. But long before, namely, in 1878, M. Gustave
Moynier had raised the question of a concerted civilising movement
and the adoption of a scheme of political regulation in the region
of the Congo. M. Emile Laveleye and the late Sir Travers Twiss had,
thereafter, also discussed the question before the Institute. The
essays of Professor Arntz and Sir Travers Twiss, which embody their
respective views on what to them at that time appeared to be a signal
opportunity for applying principles of colonial government as yet
unestablished by tests of practice, are fully set forth in the Report
of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
[Sidenote: Experiments of the Berlin Act.]
The Berlin Conference of November 15, 1884, may be regarded as the
crystallised result of the interest manifested in respect of the
Mid-African situation by the learned bodies and the eminent legal
authorities indicated, and also as the outcome of Germany’s tactful
method of superseding the then imminent treaty between Great Britain
and Portugal signed on February 26, 1884, but thereafter abrogated.
As pointed out in another chapter, the British-Portuguese treaty met
with active opposition in Germany and in England.
[Sidenote: German Astuteness.]
[Sidenote: The Act Praised and Condemned.]
It was during the agitation of this feeling that the Conference
was summoned at the instance of Germany. If one could analyse _in
extenso_ all the essentials which so aptly informed Prince Bismarck
of Germany’s masked advantages in such a Conference, the Iron
Chancellor would stand revealed as an early monument to the German
astuteness of to-day. In creating an Areopagus of the fourteen Powers
assembled at Berlin and referring to it the questions which, if
unsettled, would have led to conflicts, combinations, and confusion
prejudicial to German East Africa, Prince Bismarck’s workmanship
surpassed the materials which his skill employed. As the Prince
said at the final session of the Conference, the lofty aims and
political idealities proclaimed during its earlier sessions would,
when translated into facts, offer opportunity for improvement.
Indeed, time and the practical application of its precepts, so
enthusiastically proclaimed, have revealed the theorist where the
man of practical political sense would better have written certain
clauses of the General Act. As it stood in 1885, it cannot be
regarded with that awe which certain persons manifest when they
misinterpret its inconclusive preachments. Some praise it as “the
inauguration of a truly new era in colonial affairs.” Others,
condemning it without reserve, speak of it as “the work of theorisers
without experimental basis.” A fair estimate of this unique political
palaver, as embodied in its General Act, probably lies somewhere
between the extravagant praise and the untempered condemnation
frequently bestowed upon it. If, from a legal and political point
of view, it can be regarded as only a tissue of the substance it
aimed at, the fact remains that the Berlin Conference has more than
justified itself by guiding, often dispelling commercial rivalries
which, in their unchecked development, might have nullified the
great sacrifices of Belgian blood and money in the cause of
African civilisation. The Conference entered the forum when many
complications, arising from competing expeditions, conflicting
explorations, unregulated trading operations, the advent of evil
adventurers, the devastating slave trade, and a combination of other
causes—commercial and political—had provoked the distrust and avarice
frequently observed when several European peoples occupy in common a
vast and fertile territory inhabited by savage tribes. At a meeting
of a Committee of the Conference held on December 10, 1884, Mr.
Kasson, the Plenipotentiary of the United States, gave utterance, in
retrospect of early American colonisation, to expressions of historic
fact which graphically portray Mid-African conditions twenty years
ago:
The first colonies founded in America [said Mr. Kasson] have been
the work of different nationalities. Even there, where at first
emigration was of a free and peaceful nature, foreign Governments
were soon installed, with military forces to support them. Wars
immediately broke out in Europe. The belligerents had colonies,
and soon the field of battle spread to America. In the heat of
the struggle, each of the belligerents sought allies amongst the
native tribes, where they thus excited their natural inclination
for violence and plunder. Horrible acts of cruelty ensued, and
massacres where neither age nor sex were spared. The knife, the
lance, and the torch transformed peaceful and happy colonies into
deserts.
The present condition of Central Africa reminds one much of that
of America when that continent was first opened up to the European
world. How are we to avoid a repetition of the unfortunate events,
to which I have just alluded, amongst the numerous African tribes?
How are we to guard against exposing our merchants, our colonies,
and their goods to these dangers? How shall we defend the lives of
our missionaries and religion itself against the outburst of savage
customs and barbarous passions?
Finding ourselves in the presence of those whom we are urging
to undertake the work of civilisation in Africa, it is our duty
to save them from such regrettable experiences as marked the
corresponding phase in America.
[Sidenote: The Real Value of the Act.]
[Sidenote: Belgian Dominance.]
Whatever defective novelty may still reside in the Berlin Act, the
Conference which begot it gave an immense impetus to the great work
of African civilisation. It eliminated movements by the various
Powers which were accomplishing little or nothing for lack of
definition and unity. It organised a scramble, so to speak, into an
orderly and intelligently directed set of enterprises, chief among
which were those urged forward by the King of the Belgians and his
diligent subjects. In that amplitude of pledges, which when applied
to them the other Signatory Powers found it convenient to forget,
little Belgium strove mightily not only to discharge her obligations
under the Berlin Act, but to demonstrate her own innate genius for
the work of colony-building and civilisation. It is perhaps in the
inevitable result of this spirit that we find the explanation of
Belgian dominance and Belgian progress far excelling that of its
African neighbours.
[Sidenote: Freedom of Commerce.]
In the United States the Berlin Act has not met with the universal
respect of competent legal authorities. It provided no means for its
own enforcement, and left the national committees, which were to
carry out certain of its provisions, without machinery and without
that central authority essential to its life. It also appears that
the national committees never acted. Each of the Powers, supreme
within the border of its own African territory, pursued a course
which it believed was best calculated to develop the resources and
the civilisation of that region of the Congo Basin in which it ruled.
Nevertheless, the General Act had delimited the territory comprised
in the Conventional Basin of the Congo; defined the domain occupied
therein respectively by Germany, France, Great Britain, Portugal, and
the Free State; applied to the entire Congo Basin the principle of
freedom of commerce and of navigation, and concerted the aims of all
the Powers to the suppression of the iniquitous slave trade and the
horrible practice of cannibalism. It did not deal specifically with
questions of territorial sovereignty, nor with the internal public
and private land system, nor, in fact, with any act or principle of
the civil or military government of a State. It did, however, seek to
restrict the duties upon the Congo and its affluents, and stipulated
that upon these highways there should be open to all nations the
freedom to trade and to navigate. As Baron Descamps aptly says in his
essay on _Government Civilisation in New Countries_:
The broad-minded measures of the Berlin Conference did away with
many of the existing anomalies. Doubtless, the general application
of those measures to all colonies would have been a step in the
right direction; but while their general adoption could have been
justified on the same grounds as their special application to
the Congo, the Conference would not have been able to accomplish
such a gigantic reform of distributive equity. The Conference,
however, did what it could in this direction. It felt that the
impracticability of the complete scheme did not prevent its partial
application; that it was not easy to reform the whole world at
once, especially the colonial world; that the field of experience
on which it could operate was large enough; and that, last but not
least, the nature of the country, where the Government was as yet
more or less insecure, was calculated to induce those concerned to
make exceptional sacrifices.
[Illustration: Government Park, Boma, 1904.]
The Conference therefore made the following regulations for the
Congo Basin:
Art. 1. The trade of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom.
Art. 2. All flags, without distinction of nationality, shall have
free access.
Art. 3, § 2. All differential dues on vessels as well as on
merchandise are forbidden.
Art. 5. No Power which exercises or shall exercise sovereign rights
in the above-mentioned regions shall be allowed to grant therein
a monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of trade.
[Sidenote: Freedom of Commerce Defined.]
The five Powers occupying and governing the Congo Basin have here
assumed certain obligations in reference to the commercial _régime_
which should prevail in their territory. There shall be freedom to
trade, and to navigate in pursuit of commerce; there shall be no
differential duties imposed; there shall be no monopoly _in matters
of trade_. In the fourth protocol of the Berlin Conference, Baron
Lambermont’s report includes a definition of what the Conference
meant by monopoly “in matters of trade.” This statesman declared that:
No doubt whatever exists as to the _strict and literal sense_
which should be assigned to the term _in commercial matters_. It
refers _exclusively to traffic_, to the unlimited power of every
one to sell and to buy, to import and to export, products and
manufactured articles. No privileged situation can be created under
this head, the way remains open without any restrictions to free
competition _in the domain of commerce_, but the obligations of
local Governments do not go beyond that point.
[Sidenote: The Theory of Congo Government.]
Notwithstanding the explicit nature of this definition, those who,
for reasons which it is not the purpose of this volume to expose in
detail, condemn the governmental _system_ of the Congo Free State,
and declare that the General Act of the Berlin Conference aimed at
much more than insuring the common right (freedom) of all nations
to pursue _legitimate_ trade in the Basin of the Congo. How much
more, and precisely what the Act aims at, according to hostile
commentators, varies with the capacity for exaggeration, or the
speciousness in argument, of the critic. Some declare that freedom
in matters of trade means that anybody may invade the Congo Basin
and barter with natives for the produce of the soil and the chase,
laws respecting private property and providing regulations to govern
traffic notwithstanding. In his essay on _Principles of Government
in the Congo Free State_[8] the author briefly indicates the _motif_
of King Leopold’s rule in Central Africa and the cogent reasons for
the system which has made that rule the envy of persons whose faculty
of perception is not as dormant to-day as it was in 1885, when it
was lazily assumed that the salvation of a territory, not worth much
materially, was being imposed upon an enthusiastic and impractical
kingly philanthropist. Amongst other things, this essay contains the
following exposition of the system of internal government by which
the Congo Free State and its people have morally and materially
prospered. It is, in substance, the definition of Congolese policy
stated by his Majesty, King Leopold:
[Sidenote: Respect for Property.]
... The principles of the Congolese system of internal government
appear to be in entire conformity with the General Act of Berlin,
wherein freedom of trade is assured to the subjects of all nations.
This signifies the liberty to sell and to buy in a legitimate way,
not in a way peculiar to the theories of Congo despoilers. It is
repugnant to law, and disturbing to civil order and progress, to
permit the product of the land to be purchased from any person
but its legitimate owner. Congo law represses theft, the insidious
encouragement of which would appear to be the aim of those who
so grossly misinterpret the principle of Freedom of Commerce. A
respect for property is essential to all governments which hope to
endure, and the law of this attitude is universal in all civilised
communities. Trade, whether free or restricted, could not exist on
any other basis. The forces of civilisation are paralysed without
it, and untamed natives are left to savage internecine strife.
[Sidenote: Labour the Great Civiliser.]
The principles of the Congo Government are that the soil shall
maintain those who develop its resources for the betterment of the
sower and the reaper. The civilisation of the native by industry
and other forms of instruction in the attributes of order, civic
life, and all that he may be capable of absorbing of enlightened
freedom. For the privilege of residing within the sphere of a State
so governed, the white man is the most taxed member of society
in the world. Shall savages alone be exempt from labour and just
contribution to organised government? Shall the white man’s rule
teach the black that idleness, craft, animal instincts, predatory
habits in gaining his irregular subsistence, are the foundations of
civilisation? Or shall the white man by precept and example, and by
humane but positive insistence, train the savage in the ways of law
and order, industry and thrift?
[Sidenote: Taxation of the Native.]
Reverting for a moment to the assertion that the Government of the
Congo Free State is primarily responsible for what its detractors
allege to be the enslavement of the native, I fail to find
conviction in unfounded statements often repeated, and arguments
upon wrong premises, varied only in form, not substance. Ignorance
of the _motif_ impelling Congo State method and movement has misled
those who have brought prejudice to a subject worth the attention
only of the broadest minds. The _system_, which is the object of
attack when new stories of atrocities are scarce, is briefly stated
to be to devote the revenue derived from the State’s property as
much as possible to cover the State’s expenses; that is to say,
to the moral and material organisation and regeneration of the
country and its inhabitants; to resort to the imposition of a tax
in _specie_ as rarely as possible; and to exact a few hours’ labour
monthly from the natives, in order to give them the habit of work,
which is the greatest of civilising precepts. In this connection
the Congo Government goes beyond its duty, and pays the natives
for this work, teaching them the relation between labour and its
reward. The habit of work, when formed, will elevate the natives
from the savage instincts which tend to debase them in idleness.
The exaction of, and payment for, forty-odd hours’ work each month
from an able-bodied native, for whose redemption from savagery
millions of money and many lives have been, and are being, spent,
is a lesser tax than the white man pays on his meagre income from
daily toil in the cities of London, New York, Paris, and Berlin.
The county road tax alone, levied upon the farmer in the United
States, is a greater imposition than this. Those who have the
hardihood to argue that the enforced practice of habits of industry
upon savages in an African colony, less than twenty years in the
making, is an unjust and iniquitous burden, can have no conception
of the condition of the white slaves of the Midland counties of
England, no understanding of life and its burdens in the centres of
the world’s highest civilisation.
[Sidenote: The State Lands.]
The Congo Free State, like all other States, acquired possession
of ownerless lands, not by bloody wars which have characterised
the acquisitive and “civilising” methods of its principal mentor
in morals, but only after treaty with the natives who happened to
occupy those lands in their savagery. All lands which the natives
occupy with at least the rudiments of peaceful industry are
guaranteed to them. What for ages had been unused and undeveloped
for the good of mankind, native or foreign, is now being
successfully exploited by the State. Before this industrial, civil,
and moral era, the vast Congo forests were not even traversed
by the indolent native, so long as he could acquire his food
in the sluggard idleness which to this day prevails throughout
neighbouring African colonies.
The Congo Free State is pursuing a policy for the preservation, of
its forests, far in advance of other colonies, by enforcing the
replanting of rubber trees and vines as fast as the old growth has
been sapped, thus ensuring to future generations the results of
Belgian foresight and wisdom.
The Congo Free State does not trade as a State. Like other
governments it is interested in the development of the Government
domain by its inhabitants. The United States first occupied the
wild lands of North America by conquest of, and treaty with, the
Indians. It then threw the land open to the pre-emption of its
citizens under certain restrictions and impositions; for instance,
to improve the land within a certain time, to maintain its yield,
to pay taxes, build roads, and in other ways contribute to the cost
of administering and improving the State.
[Sidenote: The State Develops the Land.]
[Sidenote: The _Concessionaire_ Companies.]
After vainly waiting seven years for the influx of foreign capital
and enterprise to freely enter upon its public lands, and assume
the burdens and enjoy the gain of developing the forests for the
wealth they contained, the Congo Free State proceeded to cause
a part of its lands (one-fourth) to be developed _en régie_ (by
trustees), in order that the land might at least contribute to the
creation and support of the public works to be established within
the State for the benefit and betterment of its native population.
Another part (one-fourth) of the forests have been conceded to
private companies, in harmony with the system followed by France,
England, Germany, and Portugal, whose territories are contiguous
to the Congo Free State. But here again we have an exhibition of
far-seeing statesmanship, almost unparalleled in colonial history.
Instead of doling out the State lands absolutely to favoured
_concessionaires_, which has been the invariable practice in other
colonies, the Belgians have exacted a tremendous guarantee and
a growing revenue from those who exploit the natural resources
of its forests, by retaining in some cases a half interest in
the capital of the concessionary companies. As an example of
practical politics, this admirable system alone constitutes a
material heritage to the future of the Congo. The revenue thus
annually accruing to the support of the Congo budget must play
materially in the development and welfare of the State. Moreover,
while the State has such large influence in the internal affairs
of its concessionary companies, it has a practical power within
the companies in addition to the State law. This dual control
should ensure a commercial policy in harmony with the spirit and
the letter of the underlying principles of the State’s government.
Under this system, the Congo Free State now exports to European
markets 5000 tons of rubber annually, where a few years ago this
great asset lay hidden in a forest upon which none of the Powers
Signatory to the General Act of Berlin desired to spend its means
or its labour.
[Sidenote: Spoliation and Plunder.]
One of the counts in the complaint by certain perfervid
pamphleteers in Great Britain against King Leopold is that there is
no freedom of commerce in that part of the Congo Basin occupied by
the Free State. Freedom of Commerce under the definition of such
persons is the indiscriminate right of traders and adventurers,
and purveyors of arms and spirituous liquors, to swoop down on
the State and private lands of the Congo, incite the native to
invade the forest, steal rubber product and sell it to the trader
at the latter’s price. One need not dwell upon the preposterous
nature of that transparent scheme of commercial freedom. Private
property is nowhere open to unlawful invasion. Public property is
not open to the spoliation of adventurers and vandals. The 5000
tons of rubber gathered by the several industrial forces at work
in the Congo can be purchased by traders as well at Matadi as at
Stanley Pool, at Boma as well as at Antwerp, at a proper price.
If the freedom of commerce defined by Congophobes were permitted
to prevail in any civilised or uncivilised country in the world,
anarchy and tribal wars would ensue, all rights of property would
be violated, and the larcenous proclivities of the African Negro
would be encouraged. In the case of the Congo, a reign of terror
would decimate the native population, and denude the forests which
the wise laws of the State endeavour to preserve. Upon their ruins
the “savagery” of the white man would have succeeded that of the
black.
As already indicated, Congo law very properly forbids invaders of
the State from buying the product of private property from any one
except the owner. In that respect it does not depart from the law
of every other country. The desire of adventurers to buy rubber
and ivory direct from the natives is not sufficient reason for
permitting the latter to trespass upon private property for the
purpose of stealing its product. Once establish a traffic on these
lines, and you put a premium on the crime of theft, and pit the
spear of every native against his brother in their rubber-hunting
areas.
The difference between the Congo system of colonisation and those
of its principal critic is the difference between a definite State
policy which, having the land and its resources for its material
basis, applies humane measures for enforcing its development for
the benefit and civilisation of the native, and the permanent
constitution of the State, and a policy the baneful influence
and unprogressive operation of which can be observed in the
protectorates and colonies of one of its neighbours, where the
budgets are to a large degree sustained by the importation of
alcohol as a beverage—a “civilising influence” which, to the honour
of the Belgians, is almost entirely excluded from the Congo Free
State....
The foregoing exposition of internal policy may be regarded as a
brief statement of the principles which underlie the system of
government in the Congo Free State.
[Sidenote: Treaty between Congo State and United States.]
That the United States did not construe an illogical meaning into
the phrase “freedom of commerce,” and warp it out of all semblance
to its natural character, is evidenced by the terms of its treaty
with the Free State made seven years after the promulgation of the
General Act of the Berlin Conference, during all of which time the
Congo State authorities had acted upon the interpretation of the
phrase indicated in Baron Lambermont’s definition, and in the learned
opinions of Maîtres Barboux, Nys, Van Berchem, and Picard.
Article I. of the treaty of April 2, 1892, between the United States
and the Independent State of the Congo reads:
The citizens and inhabitants of the Independent State of the
Congo in the United States of America and those of the United
States of America in the Independent State of the Congo shall have
reciprocally the right, _on conforming to the laws of the country_,
to enter, travel, and reside in all parts of their respective
territory; to carry on business there; and they shall enjoy in this
respect for the protection of their persons and their property the
same treatment and the same rights as the natives, or the citizens
and inhabitants of the most favoured nation.
[Illustration: Students of the State Technical School, New Antwerp
(Bangala).]
[Illustration: Hospital, Boma.]
In this connection Sir Edward Malet, the British Plenipotentiary
at the Conference, clearly pointed out that “freedom of commerce
unchecked by reasonable control would degenerate into licence.”
Reasonable control is only another name for State law and police
regulation. The Congo Government maintains that, subject to its
internal laws and regulations which affect its own and foreign
subjects alike, the subjects of every nation are free to enter its
territory in pursuit of legitimate trade. _Apropos_ of this phase of
the subject Baron Descamps says:
The power of the State in this connection is incontestable. That
power is derived directly from the primary right and duty to
maintain public order everywhere and under all circumstances.
Nobody can deny the State the right of taking steps, for example,
for the preservation of public safety. Government cannot be carried
on without a judicial and administrative police system, and a State
could not renounce that prerogative without laying itself open to a
charge of incapacity in its primary and essential functions. Hence,
such a renunciation could not be argued from mere presumptions or
inductions.[9]
[Sidenote: The Free-Trade Policy.]
Amongst the innovations attempted by the Berlin Act was that
which sought, by Article IV., to abolish all import and transit
dues. Little serious account appears to have been taken—so far
as the Act reveals—of the practical necessity for erecting and
sustaining works of public utility to commerce, and the equity of
imposing proper charges on the wares upon which the benefits of
such works were bestowed. The absolute prohibition of import duties
created great difficulties for the Free State which, but for the
personal munificence of its Sovereign, would have wrecked a liberal
undertaking, handicapped and fettered by the fanciful legislation
of the Berlin Conference,—“Merchandise imported into those regions
shall remain free from import and transit dues.” Fortunately the
legislators of the Berlin Conference were not to become the practical
governors of the Congo Free
[Sidenote: A Temporary Experiment.]
State, else they might have realised that the gravest body may enact
farce and commit folly. It was the experiment of a new principle in
colonial administrative economy which they aimed at, but there is a
vast difference in substance between a mirage and a mountain. That
there were misgivings in the mind of some members of the Conference
as to the logic of driving traders into the Congo, on the one hand,
utterly untaxed for the support of the Government and the security it
afforded, while on the other the State was charged with the creation
of public works and the maintenance of law and order without revenue,
is manifested by that final clause of Article IV., which provides
that “the Powers reserve to themselves to determine, after the lapse
of twenty years, whether this freedom of import shall be retained or
not.” In this case the Powers did not wait twenty years to revise
their principle of free trade. Five years were sufficient to reveal
its inapplicability to a new country, and the Second Brussels
Conference, assembled in 1890, made of the free-trade clause of 1885
a clause allowing on merchandise other than spirituous liquors an
impost not exceeding ten per cent. “It would never do,” said Baron
de Courcel, at the Conference, “to renew the colonial experience
gained in the sixteenth century, when colonies were brought to ruin
by those who pretended to fix in Europe, from a purely metropolitan
point of view, their financial and administrative system.” The
experiment of prohibiting import duties proved, as already indicated,
a serious hindrance to the economic life of the new State. That
the experiment would not, however, be persisted in by the Powers,
had been foreshadowed by the suggestion of Baron Lambermont at the
Conference when he said: “It is experience which will then inspire
the interested Powers with the most favourable resolutions for the
development and commercial progress in their possessions.” There
were, therefore, after all, men of practical political foresight at
the Conference, whose assent to so radical a policy of free trade
was accorded for the purpose of the moment only, and while the
great question of civilising Central African tribes dominated their
early aims even to the disadvantage of the correlated questions
of commerce. Article III. of the General Act, therefore, provided
that: “Wares of whatever origin, imported into these regions, under
whatsoever flag, by sea or river, or overland, shall be subject to
no other taxes than such as may be levied as fair compensation for
expenditure in the interest of trade, and which for this reason must
be equally borne by the subjects themselves and by foreigners of
all nationalities.” The reasons actuating the Berlin Conference not
to fix the rate of such taxation as it provided for at the Brussels
Conference, are clearly indicated on page 85 of the protocols to the
General Act, from which the following declaration is quoted:
The rate of the taxes of compensation is not fixed in any definite
manner. The support of foreign capital ought to be placed, with
commercial freedom, amongst the most useful aids to the spirit of
enterprise, whether it has reference to the execution of works
of public interest or whether it has in view the development
of the cultivation of the natural products of the African soil.
But capital only goes, in general, to places where the risks are
sufficiently covered by the chances of profit. The Commission
has therefore thought that there would result more disadvantages
than advantages from binding too strictly, by restrictions
arranged in advance, the liberty of action of public powers or of
concessions. If abuses should arise, if the taxes threatened to
attain an excessive rate, the cure would be found in the interest
of the authorities or of the contractors, seeing that commerce,
as experience has more than once proved, would turn away from
establishments the access to, or use of which, had been rendered
too burdensome.
That contribution by traders to the maintenance of the State under
a system of taxation and police regulation is not incompatible with
commercial freedom was forcibly reiterated at the Conference by Count
de Launay and, of course, by other members who at all dwelt upon
a principle so well established. Treating this question with much
erudition, Baron Descamps cites the French law of March 2, 1791,
relating to patents, which, he says, “gave the most emphatic assent
of modern times to the principle of commercial freedom. The very
clause proclaiming freedom of commerce provided for licence dues!
Thus: ‘Everybody shall be free to carry on any business he chooses;
[_sic_] but he must first obtain, and pay for, a licence, and submit
to any regulations of police that may be made.’”[10]
[Sidenote: The Open Door and Chaos.]
Obviously the “freedom of commerce” intended by the General Act
of the Berlin Conference is not the open door with the key thrown
away and chaos prevailing behind it. The State is mistress of her
domain. She is alone responsible for its civil order and the just
regulation of its life, whether social, commercial, or political. Her
attitude upon all fundamental rules of civilised government has two
facets: the one toward her subjects, the other toward the society
of nations which surrounds her. She must conduct her affairs with
due regard for those broad principles of national morality which
civilised communities recognise as a lofty standard of social and
political life. Until she prove herself incompetent in this respect,
her territory cannot become the subject of international partition
or regulation on pretexts of humanitarianism or on any other, nor is
it in the justice of nations or of men to undermine the force of her
authority or to enfeeble the integrity of her Statehood by any agency
whatsoever.
[Sidenote: Conditions in 1895.]
From the latest report of the Vice-Governor-General of the Congo Free
State are quoted below statements which shed light upon the belief
held by the Belgians concerning their own fiscal policy, and the
attitude they offer to the criticisms of its burly neighbour, Great
Britain, in its rule of the Soudan and its other colonial possessions:
In the region of commerce the Congo State, which was the first
to inscribe in its international conventions the principles of
liberty, has not failed, no matter what any one says to the
contrary, in the programme which was drawn up in 1884, and of
which, as has recently been recalled, Stanley was made the
spokesman. The _régime_ of the “open door,” which has just been
claimed by the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, at the very moment,
too, when purely philanthropic declarations were being heard in the
House of Commons, is that also of the Congo State; and there cannot
be discovered in our territory the existence of monopolies such as
those of ivory and rubber which the Government of the Soudan has
created for its own profit in some parts of the Soudan.[11]
The traders of all nations may sell on the Congo the objects of
their commerce, and buy the natural produce from the proprietors
of the soil; no limit, no hindrance is placed on this traffic,
and that is really freedom of trade. That this freedom may remain
complete notwithstanding the existence of the domain rights, and
the granting of concessions, has been proved up to the hilt, and
to declare, as has been done in the House of Commons, that trade
does not exist on the Congo is to put oneself in contradiction with
the law and the facts. These statements, by repetition, end by
being considered as axioms, and it is not realised that they still
await proof. The _régime_ of concessions, besides, has not been
established for the exclusive advantage or benefit of the Belgians;
the opening was given to foreign initiative and capital without
distinction to become interested in the development of the country,
and if, by a want of confidence that the event has not justified,
English capital was withdrawn from some Congolese undertakings,
the prosperous condition of which is now made a grievance, it does
not follow therefrom that those who did run the risk inherent in
enterprises in new countries should see to-day the results of their
efforts and their perseverance assailed.
It is to the astonishment, not to say to the general indignation,
of the handful of Europeans who are working, and undergoing
hardships on the spot, that these attempts are made abroad to
represent them all, from the highest place to the most obscure of
the assistants, as associated in an odious work of destruction
and inhumanity. The duty of protesting against this legend is
imposed on whoever has seen with his own eyes these territories,
once disinherited, being opened to civilisation, evangelisation,
and progress; populations, formerly troops of slaves, reborn
to confidence and freedom; the rapid economic equipment, the
railways under exploitation or construction, a flotilla which
covers the river and its affluents, routes which open up the most
distant regions, telegraphic and telephonic lines to the Upper
River, cultivation and plantation gradually extending, cattle
introduced into every district, mission establishments opened
in all parts, vaccine institutions, and services of medical,
sanitary, and hygienic orders. Such are some of the results of
what has been called the _system_ of the State, a system which was
inspired before everything by the vows of the Berlin and Brussels
Conferences, and it could not be explained how it has been possible
for the State’s adversaries to cry it down if it were not known
that their customary tactics are to lay stress on the inevitable
imperfections of a work of that extent still, after all, in the
stage of its beginning....
As concerns cotton, which before the Mahdist invasion was seemingly
cultivated in a sufficiently considerable degree, I hold it on good
authority that in Cairo and Lower Egypt some little disquietude
is being shown on the subject of the activity displayed by the
Belgians on the Upper Nile, and that some apprehension is felt
there of a cotton competition in the near future.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] September, 1904.
[9] _New Africa_, p. 68.
[10] _New Africa_, p. 67.
[11] _Soudan Gazette_, published by authority of the Soudan
Government, No. 47, Khartoum, 1st May, 1903: “It is notified for
information that the following articles are governmental monopolies
in the following districts: Rubber and gutta percha, in the whole
of the Soudan, excepting Kordofan. Ivory, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal and
Fashoda.... (Signed) Reginald Wingate, Governor-General.”