“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.”
There is no single one of these propositions but apparently excludes the
other two, and, as a matter of fact, such contradictions amount to a
denial of the right to grant Concessions.
If _bonâ fide_ occupiers ever existed they have become proprietors;
occupation, where it can be exercised, is under all legislative codes,
one of the methods by which property can be acquired, and in the Congo
State titles of ownership deriving from it have been legally registered.
If the land has never been legally occupied, it is without an owner, or,
rather the State is the owner: the State can allot it to a third party,
for whom such allotment is a complete and absolute title. In either case
it is hard to see how the fruits of the soil can be reserved for any but
the owner on the pretext that the latter is not able to collect the
produce of his property.
By a curious contradiction it is observed in the note that, as a
consequence of the allotment of lands by the State, the natives “lose
their right of collecting the natural fruits,” and, on the other hand,
that they retain the right of disposing of these fruits “until
unoccupied land is reduced into individual occupation.” It is difficult
to understand what is meant by a right which belongs to the natives or
not according to the action of a third party. Either they lost their
rights on the lands being allotted, and in that case they have lost them
entirely and completely, or else they have retained them, and are
entitled to retain them, although “the land is reduced into individual
occupation.”
Again, what are we to understand by the expressions “_bonâ fide_”
occupiers and “individual occupation?” Who is to determine whether the
occupier has brought his lands into a state of individual occupation,
whether he is able to collect their produce, or whether it is still for
the native to do so? In any case, such a question is essentially one to
be settled by municipal law.
The note is, moreover, incomplete in another respect. It states that
where the land has not yet been worked by those who have a right to it,
the option of working should belong to the native. Rights would thus be
given to the natives to the prejudice of the Government or of white
concessionnaires, but the note does not explain how nor by whom the
wrong thus caused would be repaired or made good. Though the system thus
advocated cannot be applied in the Congo State, as there are no longer
any unappropriated lands there, attention should be called to the
statement in the interest of white men established in the conventional
basin. If it is right to treat the negro well, it is none the less just
not to despoil the white man, who, in the interest of all, must remain
the dominant race.
From an economic point of view, it would be very regrettable if, in
spite of the rights regularly acquired by white men, the domain lands
were, even temporarily, handed over to the natives. Such a course would
involve a return to their former condition of abandonment, when the
natives left them unproductive, for the collection of rubber, the
plantation of coffee, cocoa, tobacco, &c., date from the day when the
State itself took the initiative: the export trade was insignificant
before the impetus it received from Government enterprise. Such a course
would furthermore certainly involve the neglect of rational methods of
work, of planting and of replanting--measures which the State and the
Concessionary Companies have assumed as an obligation with a view to
securing the preservation of the natural riches of the country.
Never in the Congo, so far as we know, have requests to buy natural
produce been addressed to the rightful owners. Up to now the only
attempts made have been to buy the produce which has been stolen, and
the State, as was its duty, has had those guilty of these unlawful
attempts prosecuted.
It is not true, as has been asserted, that the policy of the State has
killed trade; it has, on the contrary, created the materials which trade
deals in and keeps up the supply; it is thanks to the State that, on the
Antwerp market--and soon even in the Congo where the possibility of
establishing trade depôts is being considered--5,000 tons of rubber
collected in the Congo can be annually put on sale to all and sundry
without privilege or monopoly, while formerly, in 1887, for instance,
the rubber export amounted to hardly 30 tons. It is the State which,
after having created, at its own expense, the material of trade,
carefully preserves the source of it by means of planting and
replanting.
It must not be forgotten either that the Congo State has been obliged to
rely on its own resources. It was forced to utilize its domain in the
public interest. All the receipts of the domain go into the Treasury, as
also the dividends of the shares which the State holds in exchange for
Concessions granted. It has only been by fully utilizing its domain
lands, and pledging the greater part of their revenues, that it has been
able to raise loans, and encourage the construction of railways by
guarantees of interest, thus realizing one of the means most advocated
by the Brussels Conference for promoting civilization in Central
Africa. Nor has it hesitated to mortgage its domain lands with this
object.
The Berlin Act is not opposed to such a course, for it never proscribed
the rights of property as there is now an _ex post facto_ attempt to
make out, an attempt tending, consciously or not, to the ruin of the
whole conventional basin of the Congo.
It will not escape the notice of the Powers that the English note, by
suggesting a reference to the Court at The Hague, tends to bring into
consideration as cases for arbitration questions of sovereignty and
internal administration as questions for arbitration which, according to
prevailing doctrines, are excluded from arbitral decisions. As far as
the present case is concerned, it must be assumed that the suggestion of
referring the matter to the Court at The Hague has a general meaning, if
it is true that, in the opinion of the English Chambers of Commerce,
“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 [_sic_] in direct opposition
to the Articles of the Act of Berlin, 1885.” The Government of the Congo
State have never ceased advocating arbitration as a mode of settling
questions which are of an international nature, and can thus be suitably
treated, as, for instance, the divergencies of opinion which have arisen
in connexion with the lease of the territories of the Bahr-el-Ghazal.
The Government of the Congo State, after careful examination of the
English note, remain convinced that, in view of its vagueness, and the
complete lack of evidence, which is implicitly admitted, there is no
tribunal in the world, supposing there were one possessing competent
jurisdiction, which could, far from pronouncing a condemnation, take any
decision other than to refuse action on mere supposition.
If the Congo State is attacked, England may admit that she, more than
any other nation, has been the object of attacks and accusations of
every kind, and the list would be long of the campaigns which have at
various times, and even quite recently, been directed against her
colonial administration. She has certainly not escaped criticism in
regard to her numerous and bloody wars against native populations, nor
the reproach of oppressing natives and invading their liberty. Has she
not been blamed in regard to the long insurrections in Sierra Leone; to
the disturbed state of Nigeria, where quite recently, according to the
English newspapers, military measures of repression cost, on one single
occasion, the lives of 700 natives, of most of their Chiefs, and of the
Sultan; and to the conflict in Somaliland, which is being carried on at
the cost of many lives, without, however, exciting expressions of regret
in the House of Commons, except on the score of the heavy expense?
Seeing that these attacks have left England indifferent, it is somewhat
surprising to find her now attaching such importance to those made on
the Congo State.
There is, however, reason to think that the natives of the Congo State
prefer the Government of a small and pacific nation, whose aims remain
as peaceful as its creation which was founded on Treaties concluded with
the natives.
(Signed) CHR. DE CUVELIER.
_Brussels, September 17, 1903._