"Reply not recorded.
"President: 'Did you see his entrails hanging on his house?'
"Lontulu: 'Yes.'
"_Question_: 'Were the sentries and people who helped given the dead
bodies to eat?'
"_Answer_: 'Yes, they ate them. Those who took part in the fight cut
them up and ate them.... He was _chicotted_ (flogged), and said, "Why
do you do this? Is it right to flog a chief?"' Gave a very full
account of his harsh treatment and sufferings."
The action was taken for criminal libel by M. Hagstrom against Mr.
Stannard, for saying that this evidence had been given before the
Commission. Of course, the only way to establish the fact was a reference
to the evidence itself which lay at Brussels. But as Hagstrom was only a
puppet of the higher Government of the Congo (which means the King
himself), in their attempt to revenge themselves upon the missionaries it
was not very likely that official documents would be produced for the mere
purpose of serving the end of Justice. The minutes then were not
forthcoming. How, then, was Mr. Stannard to produce evidence that his
account was correct? Obviously by producing Lontulu, the chief. But the
wretched Lontulu, beaten and tortured, with his beard plucked off and his
spirit broken, had been cast into gaol before the trial, and knew well
what would be his fate if he testified against his masters. He withdrew
all that he had said at the Commission--and who can blame him? So M.
Hagstrom obtained his verdict and the Belgian reptile Press proclaimed
that Mr. Stannard had been proved to be a liar. He was sentenced to three
months' imprisonment, with the alternative of a L40 fine. Even as I write,
two more of these lion-hearted missionaries, Americans this time--Mr.
Morrison and Mr. Shepherd--are undergoing a similar prosecution on the
Congo. This time it is the Kasai Company which is the injured innocent.
But the eyes of Europe and America are on the transaction, and M.
Vandervelde, the fearless Belgian advocate of liberty, has set forth to
act for the accused. What M. Labori was to Dreyfus, M. Vandervelde has
been to the Congo, save that it is a whole nation who are his clients. He
and his noble comrade, Mr. Lorand, are the two men who redeem the record
of infamy which must long darken the good name of Belgium.
I will now deal swiftly with the records of evil deeds which have occurred
since the time which I have already treated. I say "swiftly" not because
there is not much material from which to choose, but because I feel that
my reader must be as sated with horrors as I who have to write them. Here
are some notes of a journey undertaken by W. Cassie Murdoch, as recently
as July and September, 1907. This time we are concerned with the Crown
Domain, King Leopold's private estate, of which we have such accounts
from Mr. Clark and Mr. Scrivener dating as far back as 1894. Thirteen
years had elapsed and no change! What do these thirteen represent in
torture and murder? Could all these screams be united, what a vast cry
would have reached the heavens. In the Congo hell the most lurid glow is
to be found in the Royal Domain. And the money dragged from these tortured
people is used in turn to corrupt newspapers and public men--that it may
be possible to continue the system. So the devil's wheel goes round and
round! Here are some extracts from Mr. Murdoch's report:
"I remarked to the old chief of the largest town I came across that
his people seemed to be numerous. 'Ah,' said he, 'my people are all
dead. These you see are only a very few of what I once had.' And,
indeed, it was evident enough that his town had once been a place of
great size and importance. There cannot be the least doubt that this
depopulation is directly due to the State. Everywhere I went I heard
stories of the raids made by the State soldiers. The number of people
they shot, or otherwise tortured to death, must have been enormous.
Perhaps as many more of those who escaped the rifle died from
starvation and exposure. More than one of my carriers could tell of
how their villages had been raided, and of their own narrow escapes.
They are not a warlike people, and I could hear of no single attempt
at resistance. They are the kind of people the State soldiers are most
successful with. They would rather any day run away than fight. And in
fact, they have nothing to fight with except a few bows and arrows. I
have been trying to reckon the probable number of people I met with. I
should say that five thousand is, if anything, beyond the mark. A few
years ago the population of the district I passed through must have
been four times that number. On my return march I was desirous of
visiting Mbelo, the place where Lieutenant Massard had been stationed,
and in which he committed his unspeakable outrages. On making
inquiries, however, I was told that there were no people there now,
and that the roads were all 'dead.' On reaching one of the roads that
led there, it was evident enough that it had not been used for a long
time. Later on, I was able to confirm the statement that what had once
been a district with numerous large towns, was now completely
empty....
"With the exception of a few people living near the one State post now
existing on this side of the Lake, who supply the State with _kwanga_
and large mats, all the people I saw are taxed with rubber. The rubber
tax is an intolerable burden--how intolerable I should have found it
almost impossible to believe had I not seen it. It is DIFFICULT TO
DESCRIBE IT CALMLY. What I found was simply this: The _'tax' demands
from twenty to twenty-five days' labour every month_. There never was
a 'forty hours per month labour law' in the Crown Domain, and so long
as the tax is demanded in rubber, there never will be--at least in the
section of it I visited. If that law were applied, no rubber would, or
could possibly, be produced, for the simple reason that _there is no
rubber left in this section of the Domain_.
"It was some time before I made the discovery that in the Domaine de
la Couronne west of Lake Leopold there is no rubber. On my way through
I was continually meeting numbers of men going out on the hunt for
rubber, and heard with amazement the distance they had to walk. It
seemed so impossible that I was somewhat sceptical of the truth of
what I was told. But I heard the same story so often, and in so many
different places, that I was at last obliged to accept it. On my
return I followed up this track, and found that it was all true. And I
found also that the rubber is collected from the Domaine Prive in
forests from ten to forty miles beyond the boundary of the Crown
Domain.
"Once the vines had been found the working of the rubber is a small
part of the labour. I have made a careful calculation of the distance
the people I met have to walk, and I find that the average _cannot be
less than 300 miles there and back_. But walking to the forest and
back does not occupy from twenty to twenty-five days per month. They
will cover the 300 miles in ten or twelve days. The rest of the time
is used in hunting for the vines, and in tapping them when found. I
met a party returning with their rubber who had been six nights in the
forest. This was the lowest number. _Most of them have to spend ten,
some as many as fifteen, nights in the forest._ Two days after I left
the Domain on my way back I saw some men returning empty-handed. They
had been hunting for over eight days and had found nothing. What the
poor wretches would do I cannot imagine. If they failed to produce the
usual amount of rubber on the appointed day they would be put in
'_bloc_' (imprisoned).
"The workmen of the _chef de poste_ at Mbongo described a concoction
which is sometimes administered to capitas when their tale of rubber
is short. The white man chops up green tobacco leaves and soaks them
in water. Red peppers are added, and a dose of the liquid is
administered to defaulting capitas. This wily official manages to get
thirteen monthly 'taxes' in the year. At one village I bought a
contrivance by which the natives reckon when the tax falls due. Pieces
of wood are strung on a piece of cane. One piece is moved up every
day. On counting them I found there were only twenty-eight. I asked
why, and was told that originally there were thirty pieces, but the
white man had so often sent on the twenty-eighth day to say the time
was up, that at last they took off two.
"Individual acts of atrocity here have for the most part ceased. The
State agents seem to have come to the conclusion that it is a waste of
cartridges to shoot down these people. BUT THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS A VAST
ATROCITY INVOLVING THE PEOPLE IN A STATE OF UNIMAGINABLE MISERY. One
man said to me, 'Slaves are happy compared with us. Slaves are
protected by their masters, they are fed and clothed. As for us--the
capitas do with us what they like. Our wives have to plant the cassava
gardens and fish in the stream to feed us while we spend our days
working for Bula Matadi. No, we are not even slaves.' And he is right.
_It is not slavery as slavery was generally understood: it is not even
the uncivilized African's idea of slavery. There never was a slavery
more absolute in its despotism or more fiendish in its tyranny._"
It will be seen that, so far as the people are concerned, the problem is
largely solved, the bitterness of death is past. No European intervention
can save them. In many places they have been utterly destroyed. But they
were the wards of Europe, and surely Europe, if she is not utterly lost to
shame, will have something to say to their fate!
X
SOME CATHOLIC TESTIMONY AS TO THE CONGO
It must be admitted that the Roman Catholic Church, as an organized body,
has not raised her voice as she should in the matter of the Congo. Never
was there such a field for a Las Casas. It was the proudest boast of that
church that in the dark days of man's history she was the one power which
stood with her spiritual terrors between the oppressor and the oppressed.
This noble tradition has been sadly forgotten in the Congo, where the
missions have themselves, as I understand, done most excellent work, but
where the power of the Church has never been invoked against the constant
barbarities of the State. In extenuation, it may be stated that the chief
Catholic establishments are down the river and far from the rubber zones.
It is important, however, to collect under a separate heading such
testimony as exists, for an unworthy attempt has been made to represent
the matter as a contest between rival creeds, whereas it is really a
contest between humanity and civilization on one side and cruel greed upon
the other.
The organization of the Catholic Church is more disciplined, and admits of
less individualism than that of those religious bodies which supplied the
valiant champions of right in the Congo. The simple priests were doubtless
as horrified as others, within the limit of their knowledge, but the means
of expression were denied them. M. Colfs, himself a Catholic, said in the
Belgian Chamber: "Our missionaries have less liberty than foreign
missionaries. They are expected to keep silence.... There is a gag. This
gag is placed in the mouth of Belgian missionaries."
Signor Santini, the Catholic and Royalist Deputy for Rome, has been one of
the leaders in the anti-Congo movement, and has done excellent work in
Italy. From his own sources of information he confirms and amplifies all
that the English and Americans have asserted. Speaking in the Italian
Parliament on February 4th, 1907, Signor Santini said:
"I am proud to have been the first to bring the question of the Congo
before this House. If at the present day we are spared the shame of
seeing again officers of our Army, valorous and perfectly stainless,
serving under and at the orders of an association of sweaters,
slave-holders and barbarians, it is legitimate for me to declare that
I have, if only modestly, at least efficaciously, co-operated in this
result."
There is no conflict of creeds in such an utterance as that.
Catholic papers have occasionally spoken out bravely upon the subject.
_Le Patriote_, of Brussels (Royalist and Catholic), in its issue of
February 28th, 1907, has an indignant editorial:
"The rebellion in the A.B.I.R. territory extends. The Government
itself forces the rubber, and delivers it on the Antwerp quay to the
brokers of the A.B.I.R.... Nothing is altered on the Congo. The same
abominable measures are adopted; the same outrages take place.... The
Government is adopting the same measures as in the Mongalla, flooding
the A.B.I.R. territory with soldiers to utterly smash the people, whom
it thinks will then work, and the rubber output be increased.... The
memory of these deeds will remain graven in the memory of men, and in
the memory of Divine vengeance. Sooner or later the executioners will
have to render an account to God and to history."
There is one order of the Catholic Church which has always had a most
noble record in its treatment of native races. These are the Jesuits. No
one who has read the "History of Paraguay," or studied the records of the
Missions to the Red Indians of the eighteenth century, can forget the
picture of unselfish devotion which they exhibit. Father Vermeersch, a
worthy successor of such predecessors, has published a book, "La Question
Congolaise," in which he finds nothing incompatible between his position
as a Catholic and his exposure of the abuses of the Congo.
In all points the position of Father Vermeersch and of the English
Reformers appears to be identical.
On the rightful possession of the land by the natives he writes in terms
which might be a paragraph from Mr. Morel:
"On the Congo the land cannot be supposedly vacant. Presumption is in
favour of occupation, of a full occupation. By this is meant that it
is not sufficient to recognize to the natives rights of tenure over
the land they actually cultivate, or certain rights of
usage--wood-cutting, hunting, fishing--on the remainder of the
territory; but these rights of usage, which are much more important
than with us, appear to imply a full _animus domini_, and to signify a
complete appropriation, which is carried out amongst us in different
fashion. It is not, in effect, indispensable in natural law that I
should exhaust the utility of an article or of land in order to be
able to claim it as my own; it suffices that I should make use of it
in a positive manner, but of my own will, personally, and that I
should have the will to forbid any stranger to use it without my
consent. Hence effective occupation is joined to intention, and all
the constituent elements to a valid title of property exist. Let us
suppose, moreover, that some great Belgian landowner wishes to convert
portions of his property into sporting land--that land, nevertheless,
remains in his entire possession. Amongst the Congo natives, no doubt,
occupation is usually collective; but such occupation is as worthy of
respect as no matter what individual appropriation."
He continues:
"To whom does the rubber belong which grows upon the land occupied by
the Congo natives? To the natives, and to no one else, without their
consent and just compensation."
Again:
"To sum up, we recognize it with much regret, the State's
appropriation of so-called vacant land on the Congo confronts us with
AN IMMENSE EXPROPRIATION."
He makes a bold attack upon King Leopold's own preserve:
"Humanity, whose cause we plead, Christian rights, whose principles we
endeavour to inculcate, compel us to touch briefly upon a curious and
mysterious creation which is peculiar to the Congo State--the _Domaine
de la Couronne_."
"What are the revenues of this mysterious civil personality?
Estimates, more or less conjectural in nature, elaborated by M.
Cattier appear to establish the profits from the exploitation of
rubber alone, at eight to nine millions of francs per annum. M. le
Comte de Smet de Naeyer reduces this figure to four or five millions.
Short of positive data one can only deal in conjectures. But we regret
still more that an impenetrable veil hides from sight all that takes
place in the territory of this _Domaine_. IT IS EIGHT OR TEN TIMES THE
SIZE OF BELGIUM, AND THROUGHOUT THIS VAST EXTENT OF TERRITORY THERE IS
NEITHER MISSIONARY NOR MAGISTRATE."
Only one missionary at that date had entered this dark land, and his
exclamation was: "The Bulgarian atrocities are child's play to what has
taken place here."
Father Vermeersch then proceeds to deal with the Congo balance-sheets. His
criticism is most destructive. He shows at considerable length, and with a
fine grasp of his subject, that there is really no connection at all
between the so-called estimate and the actual budget. In the course of the
State's development there is an excess running to millions of pounds which
has never been accounted for. In this Father Vermeersch is in agreement
with the equally elaborate calculations of Professor Cattier, of Brussels.
He puts the economical case in a nutshell thus:
"X----, District Commissioner, commits every day dozens of offences
against individual liberty. What can be done? These violations of the
law are necessitated by a great enterprise which must have workmen. In
such cases the intervention of the magistrate would be a ruinous
imprudence, calculated to bring trouble into the region."
"But the law?"
"Oh, law in the Congo is not applicable!"
"But if you offered a decent remuneration, would you not get free
labour?"
"That is precisely what the State will not listen to. It maintains
that the enterprise must be carried out for nothing!"
And disposes once again of the "forty hours a month" fiction:
"It is IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE STATE TO OBTAIN THE AMOUNT OF RUBBER IT
SELLS ANNUALLY, BY LABOUR LIMITED TO FORTY HOURS A MONTH, especially
when it is borne in mind that a number of these hours are absorbed in
other _corvees_. Of two things one, therefore. Either the surplus is
furnished freely; and if so, how can coercion be logically argued? Or
this supplementary labour is forced; and if so, the law of forty hours
is shown to be merely a fraud."
He shows the root causes of the evil:
"So long as an inflexible will fixes in advance the quantity of rubber
to be obtained; so long as instructions are given in this form:
'Increase by five tons your rubber output per month' (instance given
by Father Cus and van Hencxthoven in their report), we cannot await
with confidence a serious improvement, which is the desire of all...."
"The Governor-General dismisses and appoints magistrates at his will,
suspends the execution of penalties; even sends back, if need be,
gentlemen of the gown to Europe. Who does not realize the grave
inconvenience of this dependence? That is not all. No proceedings can
be attempted against a European without the authority of the
Governor-General."
And, finally, his reasons for writing his book:
"The contemplation of an immeasurable misery has caused us to publish
this book. The gravity of the evil, its roots causes, had long escaped
us. When we knew them we could not retain within ourselves the
compassion with which we were imbued, and we resolved to tell the
citizens of a generous country, appealing to their religion, to their
patriotism, to their hearts."
Surely after such evidence from such a source there must be some
heart-searchings among those higher members of the Catholic hierarchy,
including both Cardinals and Bishops, who have done what they could to
cripple the efforts of the reformers. Misinformed through their own want
of care in searching for the truth, they have stood before the whole world
as the defenders of that which will be described by the historian as the
greatest crime in history.
XI
THE EVIDENCE UP TO DATE
I shall now append some extracts from the reports of several British
Vice-Consuls and Consuls sent in during the last few years. These bear
less upon outrages, which have admittedly greatly decreased, but mainly
upon the general condition of the people, which is one of deplorable
poverty and misery--a slavery without that care which the owner was bound
to exercise over the health and strength of the slave. I shall give
without comment some extracts from the reports of Vice-Consul Mitchell,
which date from July, 1906:
"Most of the primitive bridges over the numerous creeks and marshes
had rotted away, and we had some difficulty in crossing on fallen
trees or a few thin sticks. This was the case all the way to Banalya,
and I may here state that this condition of the roads, even of the
most frequented, is universal in this province. The reason is that the
local authorities have neither men, means, nor time at their disposal
for the making of decent roads. _The parsimony of the State in this
respect is the more remarkable in the 'Domaine Prive,' whence large
amounts are derived, and where next to nothing is expended._
"So long as the policy of the State Government is to extract all it
can from the country, while using only local materials, and spending
the least possible amount on development and improvements, no increase
in the general well-being can be expected....
"... At all the posts on the north (right) bank, between Yambuya and
Basoko, I found the European agents absent in the interior, and at
Basoko itself only the doctor was left in charge, all the rest of the
staff _being away_ '_en expedition_,' that is, on punitive
expeditions.
"I stayed at Basoko for five days, partly at Dr. Grossule's request,
and partly in the endeavour to learn something of the operations
going on in the interior. Three canoe-loads of prisoners arrived, all
heavily loaded with chains. But all I could learn was that they were
sent in by Lieutenant Baron von Otter, who had been sent to the
promontory lying between the mouth of the Aruwimi and the Congo to
enforce the Labour Ordinances.
"In all the Basenji villages through which I have passed on my two
journeys, the natives assert that it _takes them three weeks every
month to find and make their tale of rubber, besides taking it once
every three months to the State post, from four to six days distant_.
"This country is taxed to the utmost, not one penny of the proceeds of
which is spent on the roads. This condition of the most important
highway in the province is nothing less than disgraceful, and yet this
is the road of which the authorities are really proud.
"Thus, with the exception of a trivial payment for some things, the
Government carries on the work of the country at no expense beyond the
wages and the European rations of the white agents, and these are
excessively few in number. It is true there are the _Force Publique_
and some _travailleurs_. These are recruited by conscription and
receive pay and rations, but it is at the lowest possible rate....
"Coming to the Basenji, the following particulars of a village in the
forest will show their liabilities. This village has fourteen adult
males; its neighbour, which works with it, the chiefs being brothers,
has nine. Each man has to take to the State post a large basket,
holding about twenty-five pounds of rubber, once every month and a
half. To get this rubber, though they find it only one day's journey
distant, takes them thirty days. It then takes them five days to carry
it to the State post, and three days to return. Thus they spend
thirty-eight days out of forty-five in the compulsory service of the
State. For the basket of rubber they receive 1 kilog. of salt,
nominally worth 1 fr. The chief receives 1 kilog. of salt for the
whole. If the rubber is deficient in quality or quantity, the man is
liable to be whipped and imprisoned without trial. As it is supposed
to be the equivalent of the forty hours' monthly labour, I fail to see
by what right the man can be held responsible for the quality, even if
he wilfully adulterates it with other substances.
"The people are all disheartened, and are unanimously of the opinion
that they were better off under the Arabs, whose rule was
intermittent, and from whom they could run away....
"I must say that during more than nineteen years' experience in
Northern and Central Africa, _I have never seen such a miserably poor
lot as the Basenji in this State_....