THE ATTITUDE OF EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES
The Congolese kaleidoscope has revolved so swiftly since 1896, that
it is with difficulty the European attitude towards the Congo Free
State notoriety can be completely indicated. It would be unfair
to the English people—that great, sane mass of them which sits
imperturbably serene and looks on—to say that the British attitude
towards the Congo is of that bitter hostility which a few hysterical
Liverpool merchants and writers wish the outside world to believe.
Indeed, it would appear to be part of their plan to make sufficient
noise to induce the Germans, French, and Americans to attribute the
agitation to the entire British public. The fact is that the severest
condemnation of the anti-Congo campaign is being uttered by Britons
against the _clique_ which is striving to entangle British ministers
in an affair that may some day redound to England’s humiliation.
The shifts have been many to which certain Liverpool merchants and
their chief crier have been put to maintain a hubbub which they hope
will, by accident or the logic of events, create an opening for their
ulterior commercial plans.
[Illustration: Native Planter’s House, near Stanley Falls.]
[Illustration: Prison, with Carpenter’s Shop, at New Antwerp
(Bangala).]
In 1897, the services of Sir Charles Dilke were first enlisted
against the Congo State. In that year it was evident to those who had
previously erred in their estimate of the value of the Congo as a
commercial and political asset, that the Free State would more than
fulfil the early expectations of Leopold II. and Henry M. Stanley.
The awakening to this fact is the genesis of the envy which enlivens
Congolese history to-day. So long as Stanley sat in Parliament and
avowed his confidence in the Belgians who are erecting a State
upon the ruins of the slave trade, and so long as he reiterated
to his colleagues on the benches there the truth of the practical
difficulties in Central Africa, the campaign against the Congo State
in England made little serious progress. When Stanley died, when his
voice in defence of the great work which he had shared with the King
of the Belgians could no longer expose the fallacies and the true
motive of the despoiler, the Congophobe epidemic spread to America
and became more virulent than ever.
Early in 1903, a number of British merchants expressed their
grievance against the French Congo in a volume by the author[48]
whose active hostility against the Belgian Congo has given currency
to many false statements and unjust beliefs. In the preface to the
story of the _British Case in the French Congo_, this writer states
that:
The British merchants in the French Congo have been sacrificed to
save the face of certain French politicians—to stave off for a
while the inevitable exposure of a deplorable error of colonial
policy. In the French Congo, rather than admit the overwhelming
body of proof pointing to the Concessions Decree of 1899 being
framed in ignorance, unworkable in practice, monstrously unjust in
its effects upon the merchant and native alike, successive Colonial
Ministers have endeavoured to square the circle, and, of course,
they have lamentably failed. An existing trade has been destroyed,
the colony is practically bankrupt, the revenue is steadily
falling, the natives are either in open rebellion or thoroughly
disaffected, the military expenditure has largely increased, and
the Concessionaires will only last as long as they are allowed to
maintain themselves by the ingenious system of fining the British
firms—that is to say, until a way is graciously found for the
latter to sell their factory depots and their merchandise (which,
of course, is deteriorating steadily); or until, despairing finally
of effectual home support, our merchants themselves destroy or
embark all that remains of their actual possessions, and leave the
country in a body.
The purely commercial considerations upon which this complaint
against the French Congo is founded are quite apparent and need not
form the subject of argument. It may be enlightening, however, to
note the fact that since this impassioned book was hurled at the
heads of Frenchmen across the English Channel, the Anglo-French
_rapprochement_ has been effected, and the _entente cordiale_ of
King Edward’s visit to Paris has likewise intervened to divert the
merchant wrath from the French Congo to the Congo Free State. French
Deputies have visited London and enjoyed that bounteous hospitality
which none can gainsay of a British household; members of Parliament
have gone to Paris and dignified the gaiety of the _quai d’Orsai_.
Not a vestige of the British complaint against the French Congo
now freights the air. Instead, there prevails a friendly persiflage
between those two great powers.
Inasmuch as the concessionaire system adopted in the French Congo
gave new impetus to the British campaign against the Belgian Congo,
it may be profitable to examine what precipitated matters.
The occasion was the organisation in the French Congo of the
system known as the _régime des concessions_. A decree of the
President of the French Republic, dated March 28, 1899, divided
the whole territory of the French Congo Colony between about forty
concessionaire companies, which were to develop it under various
conditions imposed upon them. The companies were granted all the
rights of ownership over the ceded areas.
In 1901, several of these companies prohibited certain English
merchants, who had been established in the country upwards of
twenty-five years, from buying rubber direct from the natives,
alleging that all natural produce belonged to the owner of the soil.
Goods were even seized on their way to the English factories.
The injured traders complained that such action was not in accordance
with the General Act of Berlin, the terms of which insure freedom of
trade in the Congo Basin. They appealed to the French Congo courts,
whose decision was in favour of the companies. Many judgments were
pronounced, all of which held that the agricultural exploitation of
the forests was an exclusive right of the concessionaire companies,
and did not run counter to the provisions of the Berlin Act.
These judgments were rendered by the Council of Appeal at Libreville,
on November 27, 1901, the petitioners being John Holt & Company
(Liverpool) and the defendants the Compagnie Française du Congo
Occidental.
In spite of these judgments, British commercial circles persisted
in the view that the concessions system was a violation of the
free-trade clause of the Berlin Act. The Chamber of Commerce of
Liverpool took the lead in a movement based upon this view. On
September 30, 1901, a memorial was presented to the British Foreign
Office protesting against the concessionaire _régime_ in the French
Congo, petitioning for an inquiry into its legality under the Berlin
and Brussels Acts, and urging the British Government to insist on
these Acts being respected by the French.
A similar memorial was presented on October 22, 1901, by the
Manchester and Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, and in December of
the same year delegates from ten British Chambers of Commerce were
received in audience by Lord Lansdowne, who, according to the Paris
_Temps_, acknowledged that their grievances were well founded and
promised to do all in his power for those interested in the question.
At that time _West Africa_, the journal of the Liverpool Chamber of
Commerce, renewed its campaign against the Congo Free State, accusing
its administrators of being the principal sinners, inasmuch as the
Free State’s land system had been copied in the French Congo and
German East Africa. In its issue of October 26, 1901, _West Africa_
called the Congo State _fons et origo mali_, and declared that it was
the Belgian clique which had drawn France into the economic errors of
its present system.
This campaign quickly assumed large proportions. _West Africa_
continued to wage war against the French system of concessions and
against the Congo Free State, the latter being bitterly denounced as
the evil genius who conceived a land system which supported the State
without the assistance of large revenue from the liquor trade or the
presence of intriguing foreign merchants.
In the hope of putting an end to the Anglo-French difficulties in
the Congo without raising questions of principle, the _Temps_ of
December 29, 1901, suggested that an amicable settlement be arranged
between the French Government and the British traders affected
by the concessionaire system in its West African Colony. By such
arrangement, these traders would have received compensation for their
loss. But, in a letter dated January 7, 1902, the _Temps’_ special
correspondent in Liverpool warned the French that such an expedient
would not put a stop to the agitation, and endeavoured to show in its
true light the campaign which was going on in England.
Meantime the Aborigines’ Protection Society pursued its old course
of agitating something, anything, so long as its secretary, freedom
of speech, and the attention of a Foreign Office combined to afford
opportunity. The purely commercial grievances of British traders who
had been made to conform to Congolese law required new elements of
support. What could be of greater assistance to their commercial
schemes than the tearful work of the Aborigines’ Protection Society
of England, the new Congo Reform Association of Liverpool, and their
peculiar methods of playing upon the credulity, sentimentality, and
the sympathies of susceptible and deluded persons whose leisure
sought occupation and new interests? While the business brigade
of the anti-Congo campaign sought to enlist the aid of the German
Chambers of Commerce, the humanitarian scouts developed the atrocity
theme—not so much against the French Power as against the Belgian
pigmy. Belgium and the Congo Free State cannot resort to the
arbitrament of that force which as a last resort decides the contests
of all nations.
The opportunity for attracting the co-operation of commercial
factions in Germany was greatly propitiated by the unfortunate Stokes
incident. Stokes, a British subject, once a missionary, had become
an itinerant trader, and came into the Congo State from German East
Africa, where he had established headquarters. His caravan was
largely composed of natives from German territory, and the goods
they carried for the purpose of barter were to a large extent of
German manufacture. When Stokes was caught, red-handed, bartering
guns and ammunition with the native enemies of the Free State for
ivory which they had unlawfully acquired, he was tried and executed.
This summary disposal of a trader who had been undermining Belgian
and native security in the Congo met with vehement protests in
Germany as well as in England. Other factors began to operate in
favour of an Anglo-German alliance against the Free State, not the
least of which was the apprehension felt in Hamburg, Bremen, and
Berlin over the remarkable progress the Belgians were making with
their transport facilities, whereby the trade of German East Africa
was being diverted to the Free State. For a time, therefore, the
German press joined the British in decrying the Belgian Government
in Central Africa. German attacks upon the Congo State economic
policy have, however, been largely confined to interested merchants
or enlisted politicians. Herr von Bornhaupt, Prince F. d’Arenberg,
and Consul Vohsen have been actively identified with German criticism
of the Congo State’s policy, notwithstanding that Germany, as shown
in a previous chapter, has inaugurated a land policy founded upon
precisely the same principles as those which prevail in the Belgian
Congo. The statement of Consul Vohsen that “the Congo State’s
methods were diverting trade from the German East African colonies,”
betrays, perhaps, the only pretext upon which the criticism of German
merchants may rest.
Until recently the political attitude of certain German statesmen
toward the Belgian Congo has been to bring about a revision of the
Berlin Act of 1885. In announcing a desire to form an international
league, Consul Vohsen said that its object should be to induce the
Powers party “to revise the Berlin Act and to force the Congo State
to respect its provisions.” Europeans suggest that the gentleman
probably means, by this contradiction in terms, that the real aim
of England, Germany, and France, working in secret combination
against the energetic little fellow with the biggest part of Central
Africa, is to come to an understanding which will on the part of
England realise the prophetic utterance of Mr. Cecil Rhodes[49] and
the ambitions of Lord Cromer and Sir Reginald Wingate in the Cape
to Cairo schemes; on the part of Germany, establish a new western
frontier for German East Africa; and on the part of France, the
final adoption of definite settlements in the Soudan and on the east
and south banks of the Congo River. In short, the million square
miles of immensely rich territory lying within the borders of the
Congo Free State can, when rudely wrested from the heroic pioneers
of little Belgium, be used by the three European Powers dominant in
Africa to enlarge the gouty, the bilious, and the apoplectic tints
of the African continent. That such views are abundant throughout
Europe, and that the humanitarian pretext on the part of Congo
enemies is regarded with derision, is all too evident from the
columns of the leading continental journals. European editors have
referred to the Congo debate in the British Parliament on May 20,
1903, as a “Parliamentary raid,” and likened it to the Jameson Raid
in the Transvaal, which acted on the principle of violating first,
negotiating afterwards, but in the end bringing the whole subject
within the pale of dispute, speculation, and bargain.
As long ago as 1897, Belgian statesmen were convinced that certain
English statesmen, of whom Sir Charles Dilke was foremost, had
espoused the cause of the commercial men of Liverpool and Manchester
with intent to settle upon a purpose of hostility towards the Congo
State. Whatever there may have been lacking to justify the Belgians
in harbouring this belief at that time, intervening events have
unfortunately confirmed them in their impression. Belgians connected
with the Congo administration in Brussels still maintain what they
said in 1897, that “there was a set purpose to create for the Congo
State difficulties both in Africa and in Europe, to discredit it by
magnifying isolated facts, and by preparing, under the colour of
philanthropy, the moment when there could be produced the territorial
and financial designs concealed behind that campaign. The plan
is clearly traced. At the commencement a feint is made that the
sacrificed interests of the native populations of the whole of Africa
is the cause they have at heart, and the idea of a new conference
is put forward. As soon as this idea has appeared to germinate and
public opinion has been baited, it becomes a question of the Congo
State alone, and the division of its territories is boldly spoken of.”
On March 2, 1903, Sir Charles Dilke asked the British Government in
the House of Commons whether it intended taking steps to procure the
co-operation of the principal signatories to the Berlin Act with
a view to suppressing abuses in the Congo Free State. In reply the
British Government stated that it did not then contemplate taking
steps in that direction. On March 3rd, the Associated Chambers of
Commerce of Great Britain met and resolved to press their grievances
against the Congo State upon the British Government. On the 11th of
the same month Viscount Cranbourne declared that no action would be
taken to interfere with the Congo State, as the British Government
had no reason to believe that slavery was tolerated by that State.
Then the Baptist Union threw in its weight on April 30th, and at a
meeting held in London, denounced the concessionaire system of the
Free State and attributed to that system all the cruelties alleged
against the State. Meantime the British press, which reeked with
stories of atrocities in the Belgian Congo, had not a word to say
against the French Congo and that concessionaire system therein
which was the Belgian system carried to extreme. At a meeting held
in London on May 6, 1903, by the Aborigines’ Protection Society, W.
H. Morrison, an American Congo missionary, from Lexington, Virginia,
having returned from a visit to Brussels, where he had asked for and
been refused land concessions to which special advantages should
attach, delivered a series of complaints against the administration
of the Congo Free State, and caused his charges to be telegraphed
to the press of Europe and America. While in Brussels seeking
extraordinary land concessions, Mr. Morrison did not utter one word
of complaint against the local administration of the Congo. On
May 7th, a member of the House of Commons again inquired whether a
petition had been presented from British Chambers of Commerce or
traders complaining that _trading rights_ on the Congo under the
Berlin Act were not respected, and what, if anything, the British
Government intended doing in regard to the matter. Finally on May 20,
1903, the House of Commons, pressed by organised British _commercial_
interests, passed the following resolution:
RESOLVED, That the Government of the Congo Free State having, at
its inception, guaranteed to the Powers that its Native subjects
should be governed with humanity, and that no trading monopoly or
privilege should be permitted within its dominions, this House
requests His Majesty’s Government to confer with the other Powers,
signatories of the Berlin General Act by virtue of which the Congo
Free State exists, in order that measures may be adopted to abate
the evils prevalent in that State.
On August 8, 1903, Lord Lansdowne addressed a dispatch[50] to the
Powers signatory to the Berlin Act, setting forth the grievances
which had been brought to the attention of his Government, and
suggesting that:
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 by
excluding all persons other than the concession-holder from
trading with the natives in that area. Such a result is inevitable
if the grants are made in favour of persons or Companies who cannot
themselves use the land or collect its produce, but must depend for
obtaining it upon the natives, who are allowed to deal only with
the grantees.
His Majesty’s Government will be glad to receive any suggestions
which the Governments of the Signatory Powers may be disposed to
make in reference to this important question, which might perhaps
constitute, wholly or in part, the subject of a reference to the
Tribunal at The Hague.
Three of the Powers, the United States, Italy, and Turkey, formally
acknowledged receipt of the British dispatch; all maintained silence
in respect of it.
On September 17, 1903, the Government of the Congo Free State
delivered its reply[51] and, pursuing the same course as the British
Government had followed, sent it to all the interested Powers. The
attitude of Europe concerning the issue thus joined may be gathered
from the silence of the Powers signatory to the Berlin Act, and
the press comment which the two dispatches evoked. The _Morning
Advertiser_, London, a conservative organ, referring to the British
dispatch, said:
A weaker official document we do not ever remember to have read....
The use of the word “alleged” in the title of the document gives
the key to its whole tone. The note sets forth various “alleged”
shortcomings of the Congo Government, and then says, lamely:
“His Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent
these accusations may be true.”
Surely this is a very serious matter—to accuse the Administration
of a friendly State of inhumanity and “systematic oppression,” and
then to admit that we do not know whether the accusations are true.
The leading article in the _Times_ (London) of the same day described
the Congo State’s reply as “weak, inconclusive, and confused.” While
Lord Lansdowne’s note had been published in its entirety, the longer
reply on behalf of the Congo Free State was accorded scant space in
the British press.
From _Black and White_ (London), November 21, 1903:
To pile Pelion on Ossa in the way of accusation only to encounter
a rebuff by being non-suited, scarcely recommends itself to the
judgment as a course either dignified or statesmanlike. Yet in the
present instance the fact that the English Note remains without a
_single_ answer from the twelve States to whom it was addressed
three months after it was despatched, shows beyond question the
trend of Continental opinion.
In the _Standard_ (London) of October 24, 1903, the following
utterance would imply a threat:
The Belgian Administration objects to submitting questions of
internal government to arbitration, but it would do well to
remember that there is an alternative of a still more unpleasant
character.
On September 19th the _Morning Advertiser_ (London) has the following
to say by way of insight into British desires in Congoland:
Nearly twenty years have passed since a great Englishman came
through the Dark Continent and down the Congo, and it _has always
seemed a strange thing to other Englishmen that the great river of
Central Africa should have remained ever since under the domination
of the smallest country in Europe_.
The general tone of the British press was in support of Lord
Lansdowne’s Note, and intolerant of the Congo State’s reply. On the
Continent, the weight of opinion favourably acknowledged the force
of the Congo State’s reply. In France, Germany, Austria, and Italy
certain British journals were severely criticised for suppressing the
publication of all evidence favourable to Belgian rule in Congoland,
for dignifying the fulminations of E. D. Morel, the penman of the
merchants and shippers of Liverpool, the self-appointed coroner of
the Congo, sitting in judgment upon the _disjecta membra_ which he
so luridly and so falsely portrays in the books which the anti-Congo
campaign incidentally serves to advertise. Brief quotations from
the arguments of M. Étienne, the French Deputy, have been set forth
in a previous chapter. Criticising the London _Times_ for its
partisanship, the _Dépêche Coloniale_ of October 16, 1903 stated
editorially:
... We invite the great journal [London _Times_] of the city to
cease this chicanery which might discourage men whose task in
Africa demands the co-operation of every one. In this task, in its
success, we are all interested, and the fact of having opened to
commerce the immense territory of the Congo should of itself spare
Belgium the bitterness of misdirected criticism.
In _La Liberté_ (Paris) the editor, referring to the Congo State’s
reply, says:
Now that we have before us the reply of the King of the Belgians,
we may say that we have reason from every point of view to defend
the Congo Free State against accusations as stupid as they are
prejudiced. England may definitely renounce the hope that she had
entertained of increasing her colonial empire by means of puerile
calumnies.
[Illustration: Mission of New Antwerp (Bangala).]
The _Phare de la Loire_:
We should not forget that a similar quarrel has been sought for
with us [the French]. French concessionaires have had much trouble
with two English houses—Holt & Company and Hatton & Cookson
[Liverpool]—_whose agents had turned the natives away from French
factories_ by offering them exorbitant wages.
The _General Anzeiger_, October 30, 1903, is merely quoted to
indicate the violence to which criticism of the British dispatch
attained, not as a specimen of sound Teutonic reasoning nor of
temperate commentary:
Truly, when reading this one hardly credits one’s eyes. Here is
what the English Government, whose officials are almost without
exception discredited by reason of their rude, brutal, and often
inhuman attitude towards natives; here is what is written [_sic_]
on the faith of pure colonial gossip, of unauthenticated rumour. It
is not ashamed to act thus—this very Government whose cruelties in
the last African war are still too fresh in the memory.... It is
impossible to say whether this cynical fashion of acting is more
striking than the hypocrisy which makes us indignant....
The _Chronique_ (Belgium) of November 4, 1903, contains an interview
with M. Edmond Picard, advocate of the Belgian Court of Cassation,
from which the following is quoted:
The reply to the English Note drafted by the Independent State of
the Congo appears to me as nobly simple, and as proud in form
as peremptory in substance. As for convincing the English ogre
desirous of swallowing up the Belgian Congo as it swallowed up
the Transvaal and Orange State—it would be ridiculous to hope for
this. This people is as enthusiastic a brigand as a nation as it is
honest and loyal in the individual.
The Münster _Westphal_, November 3, 1903:
The insatiable English greed claims a new prey. The two Republics
have been happily swallowed and digested. What is to be served up
now? That fine phrase, “British Africa from the Cape to Cairo,”
has been recalled at the right moment, and it is remarked that the
Congo State is still one of the obstacles to the realisation of
that phrase freely quoted by our cousins. And hardly were the two
Boer Republics given up to British domination than commenced, at
first a little timidly, then with more effrontery and brutality,
the chase of the Congo State. A mass of trifles were then put
forward with incredible exaggeration; the pretext for the agitation
against the Congo State was given: “British Africa from the Cape
to Cairo,” that is the objective of the anti-Congolese. No one is
deceived about it.
The _Kleine Journal_ (Berlin), October 21, 1903, contains the
following admonition from the well-known explorer, Eugène Wolf:
“The Germans to the front!” such has always been the cry of the
English when they have need of some one to take the chestnuts out
of the fire for them.
“The Germans to the front!” has also been the cry of the English
in the question of the Independent State of the Congo. And in this
matter also the English have found among us a fool; for the aid
which England has found in this Congolese question quite needlessly
exaggerated cannot come from the heart of the German nation,
but from the mouth of a member of the German Colonial Society,
inhabiting Berlin, making himself of importance, and who, turning
to account a residence many years ago on the east and west coasts
of Africa, invoking his title as retired Consul, and his possession
of a colonial library, gives himself out as the spokesman
authorised by the nation in order to pass himself off on his own
authority as infallible in colonial matters. With the war cry: “The
trade of Germany is intercepted by the agents of the Independent
State of the Congo, and we must settle it!” this gentleman, whose
name is known to everybody, has made an attempt which has evidently
remained unfruitful of stirring up Germany against Belgium and of
disturbing the feelings of good neighbourship and the commercial
relations existing between the two countries. The persons who
have seriously at heart the interests of the German colonies do
not allow themselves to be taken in by this trick. And if the
Congo State is governed in a more profitable fashion than our own
colonies, we must heed their example and imitate it. After all, it
is not only with the object of realising permanent deficits that we
have acquired _our_ colonies.
The _Corriere Toscano_ (Italy), October 31, 1903:
There is on the Congo as in every civilised country only one
justice; blacks and whites are subject to the same laws, and the
State’s motto, _Work and Progress_, is adopted and followed by all
with the greatest ardour.
Finally the views of some of the leading journals of the United
States, manifestly free from bias, founded on self-interest, may be
interesting.
The _Evening Transcript_ (Boston).
The Congo Administration has not waited for any commission of
inquiry to sit. It has already replied fully to the charges brought
against it, but no reply will silence its accusers. They want
the Congo’s riches, not its King’s defence, and will continue
clamouring until the utter futility of their shouting threats at
Leopold is brought home to them. Already they have prepared a map,
a copy of which is before me as I write, of the Free State of the
Congo partitioned out as they wish. The districts to be offered as
bribes to France and Germany are duly marked on it, but they are
small. The plotters do not hide their hands, they show clearly that
England, and England’s puppet Egypt, is to take the lion’s share.
This, which I have related, accounts for the tumult of popular
opinion in England, always easily stirred up by such tales.
Multitudes, misled by the cheap, if genuine, sympathy felt with the
oppressed, join unthinkingly in the cries against the Congo.
From the _New York Press_:
Those missionaries who are urging the United States Government
to interfere in the quarrel between the British and the Congo
Governments doubtless mean well, but they fail to offer any valid
reason why this country should entangle itself in a matter in which
it has no especial interest. The British Government has demanded,
and the Belgian Government has conceded, all reasonable protection
and privileges for the missionaries labouring in Congoland.
The other demands of the British with regard to the basin of
the great African river are not entirely devoid of a tinge of
self-interest, and it would be entirely improper for the United
States to interfere at all in the matter. If an American missionary
in the Congo is oppressed, or his treaty rights as an American
citizen in any way violated, the State Department could and would
interfere in that particular case, but further than that the
missionaries ought not to expect this country to go. Missionaries,
while most excellent and self-sacrificing people, are not perfect,
and one of their imperfections is that in all parts of the world
they are a little too anxious to bring about the interference
of their home Power in the affairs of the Government in whose
territory they are labouring.
The _Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia), October 26, 1903:
The acquisition by Great Britain of the Congo State would not
only join her separate dominions, but would give her an immense
territory of the most wonderful wealth. Not only so, but it would
open to British Central Africa and Rhodesia an outlet to the sea
down the Congo, and give even the Transvaal a chance of trading
with England through a port on that great river, saving 2000 miles
of the sea voyage to London.
English horror at Belgian mismanagement of Congoland is easily
understood in the light of these facts. Does any one imagine that
the British conscience would be so sensitive about cruelties
alleged to have been committed in lands not contiguous to British
territory, and not extremely desirable as annexations? The crime of
King Leopold is that he has developed a colony which England wants.
Sufficient has been quoted to indicate that the silence of the Powers
in regard to the British dispatch of August 8, 1903, was fairly
interpreted by the press of Europe. The meaning of that silence is
unmistakable. British ministers having been misled to undertake a
serious diplomatic act which was admittedly based on commercial
grievance and unproved accusations, it now became necessary to back
up the charges contained in Lord Lansdowne’s dispatch by something
seemingly more tangible than the complaints of persons peculiarly
interested in doing mischief to the Government of the Congo Free
State. It is the British view that the official report of Mr. Roger
Casement, British Consul at Boma, in the Congo Free State, dated
December 11, 1903, _four months after the Powers had been appealed
to_, supplied the necessary confirmation of all that may have been
lacking to justify the precipitate diplomatic act of August 8th which
had met with rebuff.
The report[52] and enclosures of Consul Casement would occupy
approximately one hundred and eighty pages of this volume. It is an
interesting account of a brief journey on the Upper Congo during
a period of two and a half months, most of which was spent in the
Equatorial district. The report contains many paragraphs in praise
of the wonderful changes wrought by the Belgians in the Congo during
the last twenty years. There are other passages in the report which
condemn the land and concessionaire system of the State. Enclosed in
the voluminous document are statements from Protestant missionaries
and certain natives concerning alleged atrocities. As the official
reply of the Government of the Congo Free State, brief as it is,
deals fairly and fully with the essential allegations in Mr.
Casement’s report, it has been set out in full in the Appendix.
In _To-Day_ (London), December 16, 1903, Mr. John Henderson, an
experienced traveller who had visited the Congo to ascertain for his
journal the true state of affairs under Belgian rule in the Free
State, wrote the following amongst other interesting comments on
Consul Casement’s Report:
I suggest that we should be careful in our condemnation of the
methods of the Congo Government. The agents of the State are
subject to perils and dangers unheard of, undreamed of by the
people in comfortable Britain—the climate, the condition of living,
and the natives combine to make life always uncertain, and at
times absolutely terrible. In Europe, or the West Indies, or
Australia, or in any fairly salubrious country, the methods of Free
State agents as pursued in Congoland might be judged barbarous,
but it is impossible to judge the methods of the peoples of all
countries and climates by one standard of ethics.
For my part, I shall hesitate to praise or blame the Congo State by
this report alone. I have little doubt that some of the facts Mr.
Casement will bring forward will be extremely shocking (while in
the Congo I was several times shocked myself), but these reports
of excesses will not prejudice me for or against the State. If Mr.
Casement will furnish us with reports which will show us the exact
conditions prevailing among the other West African districts—the
French Congo, the Portuguese Congo, German West Africa, Nigeria,
and the Gold Coast—then I shall hope to arrive at a more or less
correct understanding of the matter. Cruelty and excess undoubtedly
exist in the Congo Free State, but my experience in Congoland
taught me that those guilty of any crime who come before the notice
of State agents were severely punished.
To carry on the anti-Congo campaign in the United States, the
Congo Reform Association of Liverpool has established headquarters
at Boston. Its organisation includes a secretary, pamphleteers,
press writers, and Protestant missionaries. It prints and sends
broadcast to the press of America a weekly “News Letter,” composed
of articles designed to intensify agitation against the Belgians in
the Congo. It is sagaciously understood by its supporters that one
missionary with imagination and glib speech, turned loose on society
in America or Europe, can make more noise, effect more mischief,
do more to prostitute Christian work in foreign lands, than twenty
earnest, patient, toiling, praying missionaries can accomplish for
humanity by minding God’s work in the dark heart of Africa. That
concession-seeking, commercially-inclined Congo missionaries should
be enabled to gratify their desire for notoriety after the fashion
of the Congo coroner, Mr. Morel, and gain the slightest connection
with American Missionary Societies, is only to be accounted for by
the large financial support which, having prevailed in England,
may be presumed to lie back of the campaign in America. There are
certain phases of the Congolese question since 1897 by which even
a disinterested observer is deeply impressed. The large financial
support and the numerous agencies it employs is one of them.
So far the attitude of the American press has been eminently
disinterested. Its leading journals have shown a keen insight into
the motives which underlie a campaign that has been overdone to the
disgust of all fair-minded observers. There is, in all colonies,
whether under British, German, American, French, or Belgian rule,
ample opportunity for criticism. There is, on the other hand, even
greater opportunity for help and co-operation. The demoralising
story of British Lagos is alone sufficient to make British criticism
of every other nation’s colonies pusillanimous. Acts of cruelty by
natives, foreigners, or by State servants are in violation, not in
consequence, of the Congo State’s system of government. For such
infractions of the law the individual, not the State, is responsible.
But when the support of a British colony is derived from a debasing
traffic in alcohol for whose existence the home Government is
directly responsible, that Government should not assume the grotesque
position of _custos morum_ of Africa.
The Lagos _Standard_, reputed to be favourable to the British
Government, referring to the Colony’s revenue for 1901-1902, says:
It would appear that the chief and ruling tendency of the
successive administrations has been to draw from the Colony the
fullest possible revenue, the greater part of which is spent in
salaries of the officials. Every effort has been made in that
direction, and no resource that ingenuity can appeal to was spared
in order to reach that purpose....
The revenue derived from import duties on spirits, gin, rum,
alcohol, whisky, reached 65.53% of the total revenue of the
Colony.[53] To this add the licences for the sale of spirits,[54]
which brings up the contributive share of spirits in the budget’s
receipts to 67.53%....
Alcohol is the great staple of trade. By visiting Lagos, one would
be inclined to believe that it is practically the only commodity.
Everywhere on the huge quay, extending several miles, where
large business houses are established, on their wharfs, in their
warehouses, are accumulated heaps of green cases and pyramids of
demijohns of gin and rum. All the important stores have the same
signboard, bearing in large letters the words, _Wholesale Spirit
Merchants_, and from morning to night, every day of the week, there
is on the lagoon a continual traffic of large steamers coming in
to discharge their cargo and leaving empty. On the quay there is
a continual movement of black porters carrying cases of spirits
on their heads, which they either pile up by thousands in the
warehouses, or remove them therefrom in order to load the boats,
which are powerful launches of the native traders who spread the
poison all over the markets of the villages alongside the lagoon
and its affluents.
The quality of these horrible goods has been too often described
to render it necessary to revert to the subject. Their price says
sufficient: 4½d. per litre, bottle and packing included! The
Government analyst found them to contain extremely strong poisons
known under the name of fusel oils, in the enormous proportion
of from 1.46 to 4.31% of the weight.[55] Is it to be wondered at
that after absorbing several bottles of this poisonous liquor,
the drinker should be overcome by a sort of madness? Is it to be
wondered at that criminality is on the increase, that the birth
rate is on the decrease, that this magnificent race of Yoruba
agriculturists is speedily degenerating?
Where Europe, whose interests in Africa are material as well as
moral, has not seen fit to join a British traders’ campaign against
a small neutralised State, it would seem that the United States
Government could not be led into action on the pretext that its
recognition of a friendly Government invested it with police powers
over the internal affairs of the State so recognised. “Territory” and
“commerce” are the tightly furled, secretly carried banners of the
raid upon the Congo State. This exaggerated humanitarian solicitude
for the African black is purely pretence. By its hypocrisy,
falsehood, and disputative vulgarisation, the movement, instead of
remedying what evils exist in all African colonies, is made utterly
puerile. By such vituperative fanfaronade as the following, rational
minds are made to turn from the subject in disgust:[56]
Of such is the kingdom of Congo.
* * * * *
The tale is told—the tale of “King Leopold’s rule in Africa.”
A piratical expedition on a scale incredibly colossal. The
perfection of its hypocrisy; the depth of its low cunning; its
pitiable intrigues; the illimitableness of its egotism; its moral
hideousness; the vastness and madness of its crimes—the heart
sickens and the mind rebels at the thought of them. A perpetual
nightmare reeking with vapours of vile ambitions—cynical,
fantastic, appalling. A tragedy which appears unreal, so
unutterably ghastly its concomitants, but the grimness of whose
reality is incapable of superlative treatment. Destroying,
decimating, degrading, its poisonous breath sweeps through the
forests of the Congo. Men fall beneath it as grass beneath the
scythe, by slaughter, famine, torture, sickness, and misery. Women
and children flee from it, but not fast enough, though the mother
destroy the unborn life within her that her feet may drag less
heavily through the bush.
There has been nothing quite comparable with it since the world was
made. The world can never see its like again.
Sufficient that it exists, that each month, each year, the terror
of this Oppression grows, immolating fresh victims, demanding new
offerings to minister to its lusts, spreading in ever wider circles
the area of its abominations.
After that, what can one say or do except to appreciate one’s sense
of humour, and the lack of it in a zealot? A tower of babel on a pile
of words!
FOOTNOTES:
[48] E. D. Morel.
[49] In a speech delivered by Mr. Rhodes, in which he outlined his
scheme for linking Egypt with the Cape, he said that his measures, if
adopted, “will give to England Africa, the whole of it.” (Boulger, p.
373.)
[50] See Appendix.
[51] See Appendix.
[52] _Africa_, No. 1, 1904.
[53] _Message of the Governor to the Legislative Council_, February
26, 1903, p. 9.
[54] _Blue Book_, 1902, p. 21.
[55] _Message of the Governor_, p. 8.
[56] E. D. Morel.