Government at the time when the Congo State took the fatal step, the
direct cause of everything which has followed, of leaving the honest
path, trodden up to that time by all European Colonies, and seizing the
land of the country as their own. Only in 1896 do we find protests against
the ill-usage of British coloured subjects, ending in a statement in
Parliament from Mr. Chamberlain that no further recruiting would be
allowed. For the first time we had shown ourselves in sharp disagreement
with the policy of the Congo State. In April, 1897, a debate was raised on
Congo affairs by Sir Charles Dilke without any definite result.
Our own troubles in South Africa (troubles which called forth in Belgium a
burst of indignation against wholly imaginary British outrages during the
war) left us little time to fulfil our Treaty obligations toward the
natives on the Congo. In 1903 the matter forced itself to the front again,
and a considerable debate took place in the House of Commons, which ended
by passing a resolution with almost complete unanimity to the following
effect:
"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."
In July of the same year there occurred the famous three days' debate in
the Belgian House, which was really inaugurated by the British resolution.
In this debate the two brave Reformers, Vandervelde and Lorand, though
crushed by the voting power of their opponents, bore off all the honours
of war. M. de Favereau, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, alternately
explained that there was no connection at all between Belgium and the
Congo State, and that it was a breach of Belgian patriotism to attack the
latter. The policy of the Congo State was upheld and defended by the
Belgian Government in a way which must forever identify them with all the
crimes which I have recounted. No member of the Congo administration could
ever have expressed the intimate spirit of Congo administration so
concisely as M. de Smet de Naeyer, when he said, speaking of the natives:
"They are not entitled to anything. What is given them is a pure
gratuity." Was there ever in the world such an utterance as that from a
responsible statesman! In 1885 a State is formed for the "moral and
material improvement of the native races." In 1903 the native "is not
entitled to anything." The two phrases mark the beginning and the end of
King Leopold's journey.
In 1904 the British Government showed its continued uneasiness and disgust
at the state of affairs on the Congo by publishing the truly awful report
of Consul Casement. This document, circulated officially all over the
globe, must have opened the eyes of the nations, if any were still shut,
to the true object and development of King Leopold's enterprise. It was
hoped that this action upon the part of Great Britain would be the first
step toward intervention, and, indeed, Lord Lansdowne made it clear in so
many words that our hand was outstretched, and that if any other nation
chose to grasp it, we would proceed together to the task of compulsory
reform. It is not to the credit of the civilized nations that not one was
ready to answer the appeal. If, finally, we are forced to move alone, they
cannot say that we did not ask and desire their co-operation.
From this date remonstrances were frequent from the British Government,
though they inadequately represented the anger and impatience of those
British subjects who were aware of the true state of affairs. The British
Government refrained from going to extremes because it was understood that
there would shortly be a Belgian annexation, and it was hoped that this
would mark the beginning of better things without the necessity for our
intervention. Delay followed delay, and nothing was done. A Liberal
Government was as earnest upon the matter as its Unionist predecessor, but
still the diplomatic etiquette delayed them from coming to a definite
conclusion. Note followed note, while a great population was sinking into
slavery and despair. In August, 1906, Sir Edward Grey declared that we
"could not wait forever," and yet we see that he is waiting still. In 1908
the long looked-for annexation came at last, and the Congo State exchanged
the blue flag with the golden star for the tricolour of Belgium. Immediate
and radical reforms were promised, but the matter ended as all previous
promises have done. In 1909 M. Renkin, the Belgian Colonial Minister, went
out to inspect the Congo State, and had the frankness before going to say
that nothing would be changed there. This assurance he repeated at Boma,
with a flourish about the "genial monarch" who presided over their
destinies. By the time this pamphlet is printed M. Renkin will be back, no
doubt with the usual talk of minor reforms, which will take another year
to produce, and will be utterly futile when reduced to practice. But the
world has seen this game too often. Surely it will not be made a fool of
again. There is some limit to European patience.
Meanwhile, in this very month of August, 1909, a full year after the
annexation by Belgium (an annexation, be it mentioned, which will not be
officially recognized by Great Britain until she is satisfied in the
matter of reforms), Prince Albert, the heir to the throne, has returned
from the Congo. He says:
"The Congo is a marvellous country, which offers unlimited resources
to men of enterprise. In my opinion our colony will be an important
factor in the welfare of our country, whatever sacrifices we will have
to make for its development. What we must do is to work for the moral
regeneration of the natives, ameliorate their material situation,
suppress the scourge of sleeping sickness, and build new railways."
"Moral regeneration of the natives!" Moral regeneration of his own family
and of his own country--that is what the situation demands.
XIII
SOME CONGOLESE APOLOGIES
It only remains to examine some of the Congolese attempts to answer the
unanswerable. It is but fair to hear the other side, and I will set down
such points as they advance as clearly as I can:
1.--_That the Congo State is independent and that it is no one else's
business what occurs within its borders._
I have, I trust, clearly shown that by the Berlin Treaty of 1885 the State
was formed on certain conditions, and that these conditions as affecting
both trade and the natives have not been fulfilled. Therefore we have the
right to interfere. Apart from the Treaty this right might be claimed on
the general grounds of humanity, as has been done more than once with
Turkey.
2.--_That the French Congo is as bad, and that we do not interfere._
The French Colonial system has usually been excellent, and there is,
therefore, every reason to believe that this one result of evil example
will soon be amended. There, at least, we have no Treaty obligation to
interfere.
3.--_That the English agitation is due to jealousy of Belgian success._
We do not look upon it as success, but the most stupendous failure in
history. What is there to be jealous of? Is it the making of money? But we
could do the same at once in any tropical Colony if we stooped to the same
methods.
4.--_That it is a plot of the Liverpool merchants._
This legend had its origin in the fact that Mr. Morel, the leader and hero
of the cause, was in business in Liverpool, and was afterward elected to
be a member of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. There is, indeed, a
connection between Liverpool and the movement, because it was while
engaged in the shipping trade there that Mr. Morel was brought into
connection with the persons and the facts which moved him to generous
indignation, and started him upon the long struggle which he has so
splendidly and unselfishly maintained. As a matter of fact, all business
men in England have very good reason to take action against a system which
has kept their commerce out of a country which was declared to be open to
international trade. But of all towns Liverpool has the least reason to
complain, as it is the centre of that shipping line which (alas! that any
English line should do so) conveys the Congo rubber from Boma to Antwerp.
5.--_That it is a Protestant scheme in order to gain an advantage over the
Catholic missions._
In all British Colonies Catholic missions may be founded and developed
without any hindrance. If the Congo were British to-morrow, no Catholic
church, or school would be disturbed. What advantage, then, would the
Protestants gain by any change? These charges are, as a matter of fact,
borne out by Catholics as well as by Protestants. Father Vermeersch is as
fervid as any English or American pastor.
6.--_That travellers who have passed through the country, and others who
reside in the country, have seen no trace of outrages._
Such a defence reminds one of the ancient pleasantry of the man who, being
accused on the word of three men who were present and saw him do the
crime, declared that the balance of evidence was in his favour, since he
was prepared to produce ten men who were not present and did not see it.
Of the white people who live in the country the great majority are in the
Lower Congo, which is not affected by the murderous rubber traffic. Their
evidence is beside the question. When a traveller passes up the main river
his advent is known and all is ready for him. Captain Boyd Alexander
passed, as I understand, along the frontier, where naturally one would
expect the best conditions, since a discontented tribe has only to cross
the line. To show the fallacy of such reasoning I would instance the case
of the Reverend John Howell, who for many years travelled on one of the
mission boats upon the main river and during that time never saw an
outrage. No doubt he had formed the opinion that his brethren had been
exaggerating. Then one day he heard an outburst of firing, and turned his
little steamer to the spot. This is what he saw: "They were horrified to
find the native soldiers of the Government under the eyes of their white
officers engaged in mutilating the dead bodies of the natives who had just
been killed. Three native bodies were lying near the river's edge and
human limbs were lying within a few yards from the steamer. A State
soldier was seen drawing away the legs and other portions of a human body.
Another soldier was seen standing by a large basket in which were the
viscera of a human body. The missionaries were promptly ordered off the
beach by the two officers presiding over this human shambles." And this
was on the main river, twenty years after the European occupation.
7.--_That land has been claimed by Government in Uganda and other British
Colonies._
Where land has been so claimed, it has been worked by free labour for the
benefit of the African community itself, and not for the purpose of
sending the proceeds to Europe. This is a vital distinction.
8.--_That odious incidents occur in all Colonies._
It is true that no Colonial system is always free from such reproach.
But the object of the normal European system is to discourage and to
punish such abuses, especially if they occur in high places. I have
already given the instance of Eyre, Governor of Jamaica, who was tried for
his life in England because he had executed a half-caste at a time when
there was actual revolt among the black population, of which he was the
leader. Germany also has not hesitated to bring to the bar of Justice any
of her officers who have lowered her prestige by their conduct in the
tropics. But in the Congo, after twenty years of unexampled horror and
brutality, not one single officer above the rank of a simple clerk has
ever been condemned, or even, so far as I can learn, tried for conduct
which, had they been British, would assuredly have earned them the
gallows. What chance would Lothaire or Le Jeune have before a Middlesex
jury? There lies the difference between the systems.
9.--_That the British charges did not begin until the Congo became a
flourishing State._
Since the Congo's wealth sprang from this barbarous system, it is natural
that they both attracted attention at the same time. Rising wealth meant a
more rigidly enforced system.
10.--_That the Congo State deserves great credit for having prohibited the
sale of alcohol to the natives._
It is true that the sale of alcohol to natives should be forbidden in all
parts of Africa. It is caused by the competition of trade. If a chief
desires gin for his ivory, it is clear that the nation which supplies that
gin will get the trade, and that which refuses will lose it. This by way
of explanation, not of apology. But as there is no trade competition in
the Congo, they have no reason to introduce alcohol, which would simply
detract front the quality and value of their slave population. When
compared with the absolute immorality of other Congo proceedings, it is
clear that the prohibition of alcohol springs from no high motive, but is
purely dictated by self-interest.
11.--_That the depopulation is due to sleeping sickness._
Sleeping sickness is one of the contributory causes, but all the evidence
in this book will tend to show that the great wastage of the people has
occurred where the Congo rule has pressed heavily upon them.
So I bring my task to an end.
I look at my statement of the facts and I wince at its many faults of
omission. How many specific examples have I left out, how many deductions
have I missed, how many fresh sides to the matter have I neglected. It is
hurried and broken, as a man's speech may be hurried and broken when he is
driven to it by a sense of burning injustice and intolerable wrong. But it
is true--and I defy any man to read it without rising with the conviction
of its truth. Consider the cloud of witnesses. Consider the minute and
specific detail in the evidence. Consider the undenied system which must
_prima facie_ produce such results. Consider the admissions of the Belgian
Commission. Not one shadow of doubt can remain in the most sceptical mind
that the accusations of the Reformers have been absolutely proved. It is
not a thing of the past. It is going on at this hour. The Belgian
annexation has made no difference. The machinery and the men who work it
are the same. There are fewer outrages it is true. The spirit of the
unhappy people is so broken that it is a waste of labour to destroy them
further. That their conditions have not improved is shown by the
unanswerable fact that the export of rubber has not decreased. That export
is the exact measure of the terrorism employed. Many of the old districts
are worked out, but the new ones must be exploited with greater energy to
atone. The problem, I say, remains as ever. But surely the answer is at
hand. Surely there is some limit to the silent complicity of the civilized
world?
XIV
SOLUTIONS
But what can be done? What course should we pursue? Let us consider a few
possible solutions and the reasons which bear upon them.
There is one cardinal fact which dominates everything. It is that _any_
change must be for the better. Under their old savage _regime_ as Stanley
found them the tribes were infinitely happier, richer and more advanced
than they are to-day. If they should return undisturbed to such an
existence, the situation would, at least, be free from all that lowering
of the ideals of the white race which is implied by a Belgian occupation.
We may start with a good heart, therefore, since whatever happens must be
for the better.
Can a solution be found through Belgium?
No, it is impossible, and that should be recognized from the outset. The
Belgians have been given their chance. They have had nearly twenty-five
years of undisturbed possession, and they have made it a hell upon earth.
They cannot disassociate themselves from this work or pretend that it was
done by a separate State. It was done by a Belgian King, Belgian soldiers,
Belgian financiers, Belgian lawyers, Belgian capital, and was endorsed and
defended by Belgian governments. It is out of the question that Belgium
should remain on the Congo.
Nor, in face of reform, would Belgium wish to be there. She could not
carry the burden. When the country is restored to its inhabitants together
with their freedom, it will be in the same position as those German and
English colonies which entail heavy annual expenditure from the mother
country. It is a proof of the honesty of German colonial policy, and the
fitness of Germany to be a great land-owning Power, that nearly all her
tropical colonies, like our own, show, or have shown, a deficit. It is
easy to show a profit if a land be exploited as Spain exploited Central
America, or Belgium the Congo. It would always be more profitable to sack
a business than to run it. Now, if the forced revenue of the Congo State
disappeared, it would, at a moderate estimate, take a minimum of a million
a year for twenty years to bring the demoralized State back to the normal
condition of a tropical colony. Would Belgium pay this L20,000,000? It is
certain that she would not. Reform, then, is an absolute impossibility so
long as Belgium holds the Congo.
What, then, should be done?
That is for the statesmen of Europe and America to determine. America
hastened before all the rest of the world in 1884 to recognize this new
State, and her recognition caused the rest of the world to follow suit.
But since then she has done nothing to control what she created. American
citizens have suffered as much as British, and American commerce has met
with the same impediments, in spite of the shrewd attempt of King Leopold
to bribe American complicity by allowing some of her citizens to form a
Concessionnaire Company and so to share in the unholy spoils. But America
has a high moral sense, and when the true facts are known to her, and when
she learns to distinguish the outcome of King Leopold's dollars from the
work of honest publicists, she will surely be ready to move in the matter.
It was in crushing pirates that America made her first international
appearance upon the world's stage. May it be a precedent.
But to bring the matter to a head the British Government should surely act
with no further delay. The obvious course would appear to be that having
prepared the ground by sounding each of the Great Powers, they should then
lay before each of them the whole evidence, and ask that a European
Congress should meet to discuss the situation. Such a Congress would
surely result in the partition of the Congo lands--a partition in which
Great Britain, whose responsibilities of empire are already too vast,
might well play the most self-denying part. If France, having given a
pledge to rule her Congo lands in the same excellent fashion as she does
the rest of her African Empire, were to extend her borders to the northern
bank of the river along its whole course until it turns to the south, then
an orderly government might be hoped for in those regions. Germany, too,
might well extend her East African Protectorate, so as to bring it up to
the eastern bank of the Congo, where it runs to the south. With these
large sections removed it would not be difficult to arrange some great
native reservation in the centre, which should be under some international
guarantee which would be less of a fiasco than the last one. The Lower
Congo and the Boma railway would, no doubt, present difficulties, but
surely they are not above solution. And always one may repeat that any
change is a change for good.
Such a partition would form one solution. Another, less permanent and
stable--and to that extent, as it seems to me, less good--is that which is
advanced by Mr. Morel and others. It is an international control of the
river, some provision for which is, as I understand, already in existence.
The trouble is that what belongs to all nations belongs to no nation, and
that when the native risings and general turmoil come, which will surely
succeed the withdrawal of Belgian pressure, something stronger and richer
than an International Riverine Board will be needed to meet them. I am
convinced that partition affords the only chance of solid, lasting
amendment.
Let us suppose, however, that the Powers refuse to convene a meeting, and
that we are deserted even by America. Then it is our duty, as it has often
been in the world's history, to grapple single-handed with that which
should be a common task. We have often done so before, and if we are
worthy of our fathers, we will do it again. A warning and a date must be
fixed, and then we must decide our course of action.
And what shall that action be? War with Belgium? On them must rest the
responsibility for that. Our measures must be directed against the Congo
State, which has not yet been recognized by us as being a possession of
Belgium. If Belgium take up the quarrel then so be it. There are many ways
in which we can bring the Congo State to her knees. A blockade of the
Congo is one, but it has the objection of the international complications
which might ensue. An easier way would be to proclaim this guilty land as
an outlaw State. Such a proclamation means that to no British subject does
the law of that land apply. If British traders enter it, they shall be
stopped at the peril of those who stop them. If British subjects are
indicted, they shall be tried in our own Consular Courts. If complications
ensue, as is likely, then Boma shall be occupied. This would surely lead
to that European Conference which we are supposing to have been denied us.
Yet another solution. Let a large trading caravan start into the Congoland
from Northern Rhodesia. We claim that we have a right to free trade by the
Berlin Treaty. We will enforce our claim. To do so would cut at the very
roots of the Congo system. If the caravan be opposed, then again Boma and
a conference.
Many solutions could be devised, but there is one which will come of
itself, and may bring about a very sudden end of the Congo Power. Northern
Rhodesia is slowly filling up. The railhead is advancing. The nomad South
African population, half Boers, half English, adventurers and lion
hunters, are trekking toward the Katanga border. They are not men who will
take less than those rights of free entry and free commerce which are, in
fact, guaranteed them. Only last year twelve Boer wagons appeared upon the
Katanga border and were, contrary to all international law, warned off.
They are the pioneers of many more. No one has the right, and no one, save
their own Government, has the force to keep them out. Let the Powers of
Europe hasten to regulate the situation, or some day they may find
themselves in the presence of a _fait accompli_. Better an orderly
partition conducted from Paris or Berlin, than the intrusion of some Piet
Joubert, with his swarthy followers, who will see no favour in taking that
which they believe to be their right.