“The State has the right to partition the State lands among _bonâ fide_
occupants.”
“The natives will, as the land is so divided out amongst _bonâ fide_
occupiers, lose their right of roaming over it and collecting the
natural fruits which it produces.”
“Until unoccupied land is reduced into individual occupation and so long
as the produce can only be collected by the native, the native should
be free to dispose of that produce as he pleases.”
Il n’est pas une de ces propositions qui ne semble exclure les deux
autres, et à vrai dire ces contradictions aboutissent à la négation du
droit de Concession.
S’il a existé des occupants _bonâ fide_, ils sont devenus propriétaires:
l’occupation, lorsqu’elle trouve à s’exercer, est dans toutes les
législations un des modes d’acquisition de la propriété, et, au Congo,
les titres en dérivant ont été légalement enregistrés. Si la terre n’a
été valablement occupée par personne, elle est sans maître ou, plus
exactement, elle a l’État pour maître: il peut en disposer au profit
d’un tiers, et celui-ci trouve dans cet acte de disposition un titre
complet et absolu. Dans l’un comme dans l’autre cas, il ne se conçoit
pas que les fruits du sol puissent être réservés à d’autres qu’au
propriétaire sous le prétexte qu’il n’est pas apte, en fait, à récolter
les produits de son fonds.
Par une singulière contradiction, le système de la note dit qu’à la
suite de l’attribution des terres par l’État, les indigènes “lose their
right of collecting the natural fruits,” et, d’autre part, qu’ils
conservent le droit de disposer de ces produits “until unoccupied land
is reduced into individual occupation.” On ne comprend pas la notion
d’un droit appartenant aux natifs qui existerait ou non de par le fait
de tiers. Ou bien, par suite de l’attribution des terres, ils ont perdu
leurs droits, et alors ils les ont perdus totalement et complètement; ou
bien, ils les ont conservés, et ils doivent les conserver, quoique “the
land is reduced into individual occupation.”
Que faut-il d’ailleurs entendre dans le système de la note par occupants
“_bonâ fide_” et par “individual occupation?” Qui sera juge du point de
savoir si l’occupant a mis ses terres en état d’occupation individuelle,
s’il était apte à en recueillir les produits ou si c’était encore
l’indigène? Ce serait, en tous cas, des points relevant essentiellement
du droit interne.
La note, au surplus, est incomplète sur un autre point. Elle dit que là
où l’exploitation ne se ferait pas encore par les ayants droit, la
faculté d’exploiter devrait appartenir aux indigènes. Elle voudrait donc
donner un droit aux indigènes au préjudice des Gouvernements ou des
concessionnaires blancs, mais n’explique pas comment ni par qui le tort
ainsi causé serait compensé ou indemnisé. Quoique le système ainsi
préconisé ne puisse avoir d’application dans l’État du Congo, puisqu’il
ne s’y trouve plus de terres inappropriées, cette remarque s’impose dans
l’intérêt des blancs établis dans le bassin conventionnel. S’il est
équitable de bien traiter les noirs, il est juste de ne pas spolier les
blancs, qui, dans l’intérêt de tous, doivent rester la race dirigeante.
Économiquement parlant, il serait déplorable qu’en dépit des droits
régulièrement acquis par les blancs, les terres domaniales se
trouvassent livrées aux indigènes, fût-ce temporairement. Ce serait le
retour à leur état d’abandon de jadis, alors que les natifs les
laissaient inproductives, car les récoltes de caoutchouc, les
plantations de café, de cacao, de tabac, &c., datent du jour où l’État
en a pris lui-même l’initiative: le mouvement des exportations était
insignifiant avant l’essor que lui ont donné les entreprises
gouvernementales. Ce serait aussi l’inobservance certaine des mesures
d’exploitation rationnelle, de plantation et de replantation auxquelles
s’astreignent l’État et les Sociétés Concessionnaires pour assurer la
conservation des richesses naturelles du pays.
Jamais au Congo, que nous sachions, les demandes d’achat des produits
naturels n’ont été adressées aux légitimes propriétaires. Jusqu’ici l’on
n’a cherché à y acheter que des produits provenant de recels, et l’État,
comme c’était son devoir, a fait poursuivre ces tentatives délictueuses.
La politique de l’État n’a pas, comme on l’a dit, tué le commerce: elle
l’a, au contraire, créé, et elle perpétue la matière commerciale; c’est
grâce à elle que, sur le marché commercial d’Anvers et bientôt au Congo
même--on examine la possibilité d’y établir des dépôts de vente--peuvent
être offertes annuellement à tous indistinctement, sans privilège ni
monopole, 5,000 tonnes de caoutchouc récolté au Congo, alors
qu’antérieurement, par exemple en 1887, l’exportation du caoutchouc se
chiffrait à peine par 30 tonnes. C’est l’État qui, après avoir à ses
frais créé la matière commerciale, en maintient soigneusement la source
au moyen des plantations et replantations.
Il n’est pas à oublier que l’État du Congo a dû compter sur ses propres
ressources. Ce fut une nécessité pour lui d’utiliser son domaine dans
l’intérêt général. Toutes les recettes du domaine sont versées au
Trésor, ainsi que le revenu des actions dont l’État est détenteur en
raison de Concessions accordées. Ce n’est même qu’en tirant tout le
parti utile de ses domaines et en engageant la plus grande partie de
leurs revenus qu’il a pu contracter des emprunts et provoquer à des
entreprises de chemins de fer par des garanties d’intérêt, réalisant
ainsi l’un des moyens les plus désirés par la Conférence de Bruxelles
pour faire pénétrer la civilisation au centre de l’Afrique. Aussi
n’a-t-il pas hésité à gager ses domaines dans ce but.
L’Acte de Berlin ne s’y oppose pas, car il n’a édicté aucune
proscription des droits de propriété, comme on veut, après coup, le lui
faire dire, tendant ainsi, consciemment ou non, à la ruine de tout le
bassin conventionnel du Congo.
Il n’échappera pas non plus aux Puissances que les conclusions de la
note Anglaise, en suggérant une référence à la Cour de La Haye, tendent
à faire considérer comme cas d’arbitrage des questions de souveraineté
et d’administration intérieure que la doctrine courante a toujours
exclues des décisions d’arbitres. Pour ce qui concerne le cas actuel, il
est à supposer que la suggestion d’une référence à la Cour de La Haye a
une portée générale, s’il est vrai que, de l’avis des Chambres de
Commerce Anglaises, “the principles and practice introduced into the
administration of the affairs of the French Congo, the Congo Free State,
and other areas in the conventional basin of the Congo being in direct
opposition to the Articles of the Act of Berlin 1885.” Le Gouvernement
de l’État n’a cessé, pour sa part, de préconiser l’arbitrage pour les
dissentiments d’ordre international qui en comportaient l’application:
ainsi, il voudrait voir déférées à l’arbitrage les divergences de vues
qui se sont produites au sujet du bail des territoires du
Bahr-el-Ghazal.
Après un examen attentif de la note Anglaise, le Gouvernement de l’État
du Congo reste convaincu qu’en raison du vague et du manque complet de
preuves, ce dont elle fait implicitement l’aveu, il n’est pas une
juridiction au monde, en en supposant une qui ait compétence pour être
saisie, qui puisse, bien loin de prononcer une sorte de condamnation,
prendre une autre décision que celle de ne pas donner suite à de simples
suppositions.
Si l’État du Congo se voit attaqué, l’Angleterre peut se dire que, plus
que nulle autre nation, elle s’est trouvée, elle aussi, en butte aux
attaques et aux accusations de toute espèce, et longue serait la liste
des campagnes poursuivies en divers temps et jusque dans récentes
occasions contre son administration coloniale. Elle n’a certes pas
échappé aux critiques que lui ont valu ses guerres multiples et
sanglantes contre les populations indigènes ni aux reproches de
violenter les natifs et de porter atteinte à leur liberté. Ne lui a-t-on
pas fait grief de ces longues insurrections à Sierra-Leone--de cet état
d’hostilité dans la Nigérie, où tout dernièrement, d’après les journaux
Anglais, la répression militaire a, en une seule circonstance, coûté la
vie à 700 indigènes, à la plupart de leurs Chefs et au Sultan--de cette
lutte qui se poursuit au Somaliland au prix du sacrifice de nombreuses
vies humaines, sans que cependant il ne soit exprimé à la Chambre des
Communes d’autre regret que celui du chiffre élevé des dépenses?
Alors que ces attaques adressées à l’Angleterre l’ont laissée
indifférente, il y a lieu d’être surpris de la voir aujourd’hui attacher
une toute autre importance à celles dirigées contre l’État du Congo.
On peut croire, cependant, que les préférences des indigènes de l’État
du Congo demeurent acquises au Gouvernement d’une petite nation
pacifique, dont les visées restent pacifiques comme a été pacifique sa
création basée sur les Traités conclus avec les indigènes.
(Signé) CHR. DE CUVELIER.
_Bruxelles, le 17 Septembre, 1903._
(Translation.)
The Government of the Independent State of the Congo have examined the
despatch from the Foreign Office, dated the 8th August last, which was
communicated to the Signatory Powers of the Berlin Act, and declare
themselves in agreement with His Majesty’s Government on two fundamental
points, viz., that natives ought to be treated with humanity and
gradually led into the paths of civilization, and that freedom of
commerce in the Conventional Basin of the Congo ought to be entire and
complete.
They deny, however, that the manner in which the State is administered
involves a systematic régime “of cruelty or oppression,” and that the
principle of commercial freedom would introduce modifications in the
rights of property as universally understood, seeing that there is not a
word to this effect in the Berlin Act. The Congo State observes that
there is in that Act no provision which would sanction restrictions of
any kind on the exercise of the rights of property, or give to one
Signatory Power the right of intervention in the interior administration
of another. It desires faithfully to observe the Berlin Act, that great
International Act which binds all Signatory or adhering Powers,
according to the clear grammatical sense of the text, which none has
power either to take from or add to.
The English note observes that it is within the last few years that a
definite shape has been assumed by the campaign conducted in England
against the Congo State, on the twofold pretext of the ill-treatment of
natives and the existence of commercial monopolies.
It is indeed worthy of remark that this campaign dates from the time
when the prosperity of the State became assured. The State had been
founded for years, and administered in the same way as it is now, its
principles in regard to the State-ownership of vacant lands, and the
manner in which its armed forces were organized and recruited, were
known to the public, without any interest in the matter being shown by
the philanthropists and traders to whose opinion the note begins by
referring. This was the period during which the State Budget could only
be balanced by means of the King-Sovereign’s subsidies and Belgian
loans, and when the commerce of the Congo did not attract attention. The
term “Congo atrocities” was at that time only used in connexion with
“the alleged ill-treatment of African natives by English and other
adventurers in the Congo Free State.”[3] After 1895 the trade of the
Congo State developed remarkably, and the amount of its exports shows a
progressive increase from 10 millions in 1895 to 50 millions in 1902. It
is also about this time that the anti-Congo movement took shape. As the
State gave increased proof of vitality and progress, the campaign became
more active, reliance being placed on a few individual and isolated
cases with a view to using the interests of humanity as a pretext and
concealing the real object of a covetousness which, in its impatience,
has betrayed itself in the writings of pamphleteers and in the speeches
of Members of the House of Commons, in which the abolition and partition
of the Congo State has been clearly put forward.
Such being the object in view, it became necessary to bring a whole
series of charges against the State. So far as the humanitarian side of
the question is concerned, the alleged cases of violence offered to
natives have once more been brought forward and re-edited _ad
infinitum_. For in all the meetings, writings, and speeches which have
latterly been directed against the State, it is always the same facts
which are brought up, and the same evidence which is produced. With
regard to the economic side of the question, the State has been accused
of having violated the Act of Berlin, notwithstanding the legal opinions
of such lawyers as are most qualified to speak to the point, which
afford ample legal justification both for its commercial and for its
land system. With regard to the political side, a heresy in
international law has been imagined, viz., that a State, the
independence and sovereignty of which are absolute, should, at the same
time, owe its position to the intervention of foreign Powers.
With regard to the cases of ill-treatment of natives, we attach special
importance to those which, according to the note, have been reported in
the despatches of His Majesty’s Consular Agents. At the sitting of the
House of Commons on the 11th March, 1903, Lord Cranborne referred to
these official documents, and we have requested through his Excellency
Sir C. Phipps that the British Government will make known to us the
facts alluded to. We repeat the request.
The Government of the State have, however, never denied that crimes and
offences are committed in the Congo, as in every other country or
Colony. The note itself recognizes that these offences have been brought
before the Tribunals, and that the criminals have been punished. The
conclusion to be drawn from this is that the State fulfils its mission;
the conclusion actually drawn is that “many individual instances of
cruelty have taken place in the Congo State,” and that “the number of
convictions falls considerably short of the number of offences actually
committed.” This deduction does not appear necessarily to follow. It
would seem more logical to say that the severe sentences inflicted will
serve as a wholesome example, and that a decrease of crime may on that
account be looked for. If some offences have indeed, in the extensive
territories of the State, escaped the vigilance of the judicial
authorities, this is a circumstance which is not peculiar to the Congo
State.
The English note proceeds chiefly on hypotheses and suppositions: “It
was alleged.... It is reported.... It is also reported....” and it even
says that “His Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent
these accusations may be true.” This is an acknowledgment that, in the
eyes of the British Government themselves, the accusations in question
are neither established nor proved. And, indeed, the violence, the
passion, and the improbability of many of these accusations must raise
doubt in an impartial mind as to their genuineness. To give but one
example:--a great deal has been made of the statement that, in a train
coming down from Leopoldville to Matadi, three carriages were full of
slaves, a dozen of whom were in chains and guarded by soldiers. The
Governor-General was asked for a report on the case. He replied: “The
individuals represented as composing a convoy of slaves were, the great
majority of them (125), levies proceeding from the district of
Lualaba-Kasai, Lake Leopold II, and the Bangalas to the camp in the
Lower Congo. Annexed you will find lists of these persons. As regards
the men in chains, they were certain individuals on whom sentence had
been passed by the territorial Tribunal at Basoko, and who were on their
way to undergo their sentence at the central prison at Boma. They are
Nos. 3642 to 3649 on the prison register at Boma.”
In the same way, quite a recent “interview,” in which the usual
accusations of cruelty were reproduced, is due to a person formerly in
the employ of the State, who was “declared unfit for service,” and who
has failed to persuade the State to accept his proposal to write for the
press articles favourable to the Administration.
The note ignores the replies, contradictions, and corrections which the
attacks on the Agents of the State have occasioned at the various times
when they have taken place. It ignores the official declarations
publicly made by the Government of the State in June last, after the
debate in the House of Commons on the 20th May, the report of which is
annexed to the note. We also annex the text of these declarations which
dealt, by anticipation, with the considerations set forth in the
despatch of the 8th August.
The only fresh cause of complaint which the note brings
forward--doubtless with the object of explaining the not unimportant
fact that the English Consul, who has resided in the Congo since 1901,
does not appear to support, by his personal authority, the accusations
of private individuals--is that this Agent has been “principally
occupied in the investigation of complaints preferred by British
subjects.” The impression which one would derive from this is that such
complaints have been exceptionally numerous. No doubt the Consul has, on
different occasions, communicated with the Administration at Boma in the
interests of his countrymen, but the subjects of his representations, if
one may judge by such of their number as the English Legation has had to
bring to the notice of the Central Government at Brussels, do not
appear, either in number or importance, to have been more than matters
of every day administrative routine: some cases in particular concerned
the regulation of the succession to property in the Congo left by
deceased English subjects; the object in others was to repair errors of
judicial procedure, such as occur elsewhere, and it is not even alleged
that the proper action has not been taken upon these representations.
The same Consul, who was appointed in 1898, wrote to the
Governor-General on the 2nd July, 1901, as follows:--
“I pray believe me when I express now, not only for myself, but for my
fellow-countrymen in this part of Africa, our very sincere appreciation
of your efforts on behalf of the general community--efforts to promote
goodwill among all and to bring together the various elements of our
local life.”
Nor do the predecessors of Mr. R. Casement--for English Consuls with
jurisdiction in the Congo were appointed by His Majesty’s Government as
long ago as 1888--appear to have been absorbed in the examination of
innumerable complaints; at all events, that is not the view taken in the
Report (the only one published) by Consul Pickersgill, who, by the mere
fact of giving an account of his journey into the interior of the Congo
as far as Stanley Falls, disproves the alleged impossibility for the
English Consular Agents to form an opinion _de visu_ in regard to every
part of their district.
With regard to the charges against the administrative system of the
State, the note deals with taxes, public armed forces, and what is
termed forced labour.
It is, at bottom, the contributions made by the Congo natives to the
public charges which are criticized, as if there existed a single
country or Colony in which the inhabitants do not, under one form or
another, bear a part in such charges. A State without resources is
inconceivable. On what legitimate grounds could the exemption of natives
from all taxes be based, seeing that they are the first to benefit by
the material and moral advantages introduced into Africa? As they have
no money, a contribution in the shape of labour is required from them.
It has been said that, if Africa is ever to be redeemed from barbarism,
it must be by getting the negro to understand the meaning of work by the
obligation of paying taxes:--
“It is a question (of native labour) which has engaged my most careful
attention in connection with West Africa and other Colonies. To listen
to the right honourable gentleman, you would almost think that it would
be a good thing for the native to be idle. I think it is a good thing
for him to be industrious; and by every means in our power we must teach
him to work.... No people ever have lived in the world’s history who
would not work. In the interests of the natives all over Africa, we have
to teach them to work.”
Such was the language used by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons on
the 6th August, 1901; and still more recently he expressed himself as
follows:--
“We are all of us taxed, and taxed heavily. Is that a system of forced
labour?... To say that because we put a tax on the native therefore he
is reduced to a condition of servitude and of forced labour is, to my
mind, absolutely ridiculous.... It is perfectly fair to my mind that the
native should contribute something towards the cost of administering the
country.” (House of Commons, the 9th March, 1903.)
“If that really is the last word of civilization, if we are to proceed
on the assumption that the nearer the native or any human being comes to
a pig the more desirable is his condition, of course I have nothing to
say.... I must continue to believe that, at all events, the progress of
the native in civilization will not be secured until he has been
convinced of the necessity and the dignity of labour. Therefore, I think
that anything we reasonably can do to induce the native to labour is a
desirable thing.”
And he defended the principle of taxing the native on the ground that
“the existence of the tax is an inducement to him to work.” (House of
Commons, the 24th March, 1903.)
Moreover, it is to be observed that in nearly every part of Africa the
natives are taxed. In the Transvaal every native pays a “head tax” of
2_l._; in the Orange River Colony he is subject to a “poll tax;” in
Southern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Uganda, and Natal a “hut
tax” is levied; in Cape Colony we find a “hut tax” and a “labour tax;”
in German East Africa also a tax is levied on huts, payable either in
money, in kind, or in labour. This species of tax has also been applied
in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, where payment could be made “in kind
by rice or palm nuts,” and it has been suggested that work on roads and
useful works should be accepted in lieu of payment in money or produce.
The legality of a tax is, therefore, not affected by the mode of its
payment, whether in money or in kind, so long as the amount is not
excessive. It is certainly not so in the Congo, where the work done by
the native does not represent more than forty hours’ work a-month. Such
work, moreover, is paid for, and the tax in kind thus gives the native
as it were some return for his labour.
Payment of taxes is obligatory everywhere; and non-payment involves
measures of compulsion. The regulations under which the hut-tax is
levied impose on the native, for non-payment, such penalties as
imprisonment and forced labour. Nor in the Congo is payment of taxes
optional. Repressive measures have occasionally been rendered necessary
elsewhere by the refusal of natives to conform to the law, _e.g._, the
disturbances at Sierra Leone, in connexion with which an English
publicist, speaking of the police force, states:--
“Between July 1894 and February 1896 no fewer than sixty-two
convictions, admittedly representing a small proportion of offences
actually committed, were recorded against them for flogging, plundering,
and generally maltreating the natives.”
Further instances might be recalled of the opposition encountered among
native populations to the institution of governmental regulations.
Civilization necessarily comes into collision with their savage
instincts and barbarous customs and habits; and it can be understood
that they submit but impatiently to, and even try to escape from, a
state of society which seems to them to be restrictive of their licence
and excesses. It frequently happens in Africa that an exodus of natives
takes place from one territory to another, in the hope of finding beyond
the frontier a Government less well established or less strong, and of
thus freeing themselves from all obligations and restraints. Natives of
the State may quite well, under the influence of considerations of this
kind, have crossed into neighbouring territories, although no kind of
emigration on a large scale, such as is referred to in the English note,
has ever been reported by the Commandants of the frontier provinces. On
the contrary, it is a fact that natives in the Upper Nile region who had
settled in British territory have returned to the left bank in
consequence of the imposition of new taxes by the English authorities.
Besides, if it is these territories which are alluded to, the
information contained in the note would seem to be in contradiction with
other particulars furnished, for instance, by Sir Harry Johnston.
“This much I can speak of with certainty and emphasis, that from the
British frontier near Fort George to the limit of my journeys into the
Mbuba country of the Congo Free State, up and down the Semliki, the
natives appear to be prosperous and happy.... The extent to which they
were building their villages and cultivating their plantations within
the precincts of Fort Mbeni showed that they had no fear of the
Belgians.”
Major H. H. Gibbons, who was for several months on the Upper Nile,
writes:--
“Having had occasion to know many officers, and to visit their stations
in the Congo State, I am convinced that their behaviour has been much
misunderstood by the press. I have quoted as a proof my experience,
which is at variance with an article recently published in the English
press, in which they are accused of great cruelties.”
The declaration of last June, of which a copy is inclosed, has disposed
of the criticisms directed against the public forces of the State, by
pointing out that recruitment for them is regulated by law, and that it
is only one man in every 10,000 who is affected. To say that “the method
of obtaining men for military service is often but little different from
that formerly employed to obtain slaves” is to misunderstand the
carefully drawn regulations which have, on the contrary, been issued to
check abuses. Levies take place in each district; the district
Commissioners settle the mode of conscription in agreement with the
native Chiefs. Voluntary enlistment, and numerous re-enlistments, easily
fill up the ranks, which only reach, all told, the moderate total of
15,000 men.
Those who allege, as the note says, that “the men composing the armed
force of the State were in many cases recruited from the most warlike
and savage tribes” must be unaware that the public forces are recruited
from every province, and from the whole population. It is inconceivable
that the authorities of a State, with due regard to its interests,
should form an army out of undisciplined and savage elements, and
instances are to be found--such as the excesses said to have been
perpetrated by irregular levies in Uganda, and the revolts which
formerly occurred in the Congo--which, on the contrary, render it
necessary that special care should be exercised in raising armed forces.
The European establishment, consisting of Belgian, Italian, Swedish,
Norwegian, and Danish officers, maintains strict discipline, and it
would be vain to seek the actual facts alluded to in the assertion that
the soldiers “not infrequently terrorized over their own officers.” Such
an assertion is as unfounded as the one “that compulsion is often
exercised by irresponsible native soldiers, uncontrolled by an European
officer.” For a long time past the authorities have been alive to the
danger arising from the existence of stations of negro soldiers, who
inevitably abuse their authority, as recognized in the Report of Sir D.
Chalmers on the insurrection in Sierra Leone. In the Congo such stations
have been gradually abolished.
Those who do not refuse to accept patent facts will recognize that of
the reproaches levied at the State, the most unjust is the statement
“that no attempt at any administration of the natives is made, and that
the officers of the Government do not apparently concern themselves with
such work.”
It is astonishing to come across such an assertion in a despatch from a
Government, one of whose members, Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, stated on the 20th May last:--
“There was no doubt that the administration of the Congo Government had
been marked by a very high degree of a certain kind of administrative
development. There were railways, there were steamers upon the river,
hospitals had been established, and all the machinery of elaborate
judicial and police systems had been set up.”