Supreme Court decision on.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
COMMUNAL SYSTEM, Russian:
Its modification.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906 AND 1909 (APRIL).
CONCENTRATION CAMPS.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
CONCILIATION BOARDS, Canadian.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: CANADA: A. D. 1907-1908.
CONCILIATION COMMITTEE, of National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
CONCORDAT OF 1802, The.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
CONFÉDÉRATION GÉNÉRALE DU TRAVAIL.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
CONFERENCE OF STATE GOVERNORS.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
CONFERENCES FOR EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH, Annual.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1898-1909.
CONGER, Edwin H.: U. S. Minister to China.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
CONGESTED ESTATES.
See (in this Volume)
IRELAND: A. D. 1909.
{136}
----------CONGO STATE: Start--------
CONGO STATE:
How the natives have been enslaved and oppressed.
The "Domaine Privé."
"The Berlin Conference laid it down that no import dues should
be established in the mouth of the Congo for twenty years. But
in 1890 King Leopold, alleging the heavy expenses to which he
had been put by the campaign against the Arabs in the Upper
Congo, applied for permission to levy import duties. It was
the first disillusionment; and the British Chambers of
Commerce began to wonder whether their opposition to the
Anglo-Portuguese Convention had not been mistaken. The King’s
request was granted (the Powers merely reserving to themselves
the right to revert to the original arrangement in fifteen
years), but not without the bitter opposition of the Dutch,
who had very important commercial interests in the Congo,
backed by the British Chambers of Commerce and all the traders
in the Congo, irrespective of nationality. A representative
gathering was held in London on November 4th, 1900, presided
over by Sir Albert Rollit, to protest against the imposition
of import duties and to denounce the hypocrisy which
attributed to philanthropic motives the desire on the part of
the Congo State so to impose upon them. …
"They were able to show that … King Leopold, notwithstanding
his formal assurances to the commercial world that the Congo
State would never directly or indirectly itself trade within
its dominions, was buying, or rather stealing, ivory from the
natives in the Upper Congo and retaining the proceeds of the
sale on the European market. They proved that, profiting by
the silence of the Berlin Treaty on the subject of export
duties, the Congo State had already imposed taxes amounting to
17½ per cent. on ivory, 13 per cent, on rubber and 5 per cent.
on palm kernels, palm-oil and ground-nuts, the total taxation
amounting to no less than 33 per cent. of the value of the
whole of the trade. Finally they had no difficulty in
demonstrating that, with all his professed wish to stamp out
the slave-raiding carried on by the half-caste Arabs in the
Upper Congo, His Majesty was himself tacitly encouraging the
slave trade by receiving tribute from conquered Chiefs in the
shape of slaves, who were promptly enrolled as soldiers in the
State army. …
"Five months after the termination of the Berlin Conference
King Leopold issued a decree (July, 1885) whereby the State
asserted rights of proprietorship over all _vacant lands_
throughout the Congo territory. It was intended that the term
vacant lands should apply in the broadest sense to lands not
_actually occupied_ by the natives at the time the decree
was issued. By successive decrees, promulgated in 1886, 1887
and 1888, the King reduced the rights of the natives in their
land to the narrowest limits, with the result that the whole
of the odd 1,000,000 square miles assigned to the Congo State,
except such infinitesimal proportions thereof as were covered
by native villages or native farms, became _‘terres
domaniales.'_ On October 17th, 1889, the King also issued a
decree ordering merchants to limit their commercial operations
in rubber to bartering with the natives. This decree was
interesting merely as a forewarning of what came later,
because at that time the rubber trade was very small. In July,
1890, the same year as the Brussels Conference, the Congo
State went a step further. A decree issued in that month
confirmed all that was advanced in November of the same year
by the speakers at the London Conference held to protest
against the imposition of import duties by the State. By its
terms King Leopold asserted that the State was entitled to
trade on its own account in ivory—the first open violation of
his pledges. Moreover the decree imposed sundry extra taxes
upon all ivory bought by merchants from the natives, which,
since the State had become itself a trading concern,
constituted an equally direct violation of the Berlin Act, by
establishing differential treatment in matters of trade. Such
were the plans King Leopold made, preparatory to obtaining
from the Powers the power to impose import duties. Everything
was ready for the great _coup_, which should also
inaugurate the Fifth Stage of His Majesty’s African policy.
"The Brussels Conference met. The Powers with inconceivable
fatuity allowed themselves to be completely hoodwinked, and
within a year the greatest injury perpetrated upon the
unfortunate natives of Africa since the Portuguese in the XVth
century conceived the idea of expatriating them for labour
purposes had been committed, and committed too by a Monarch
who had not ceased for fifteen years to pose as their
self-appointed regenerator. On September 21st, 1891, King
Leopold drafted, in secret, a decree which he caused to be
forwarded to the Commissioners of the State in the
Uban-ghi-Welle and Aruwimi-Welle districts, and to the Chiefs
of the military expeditions operating in the Upper Ubanghi
district. This decree never having been published in the
official Bulletin of the State, its exact terms can only be a
matter of conjecture, but we know that it instructed the
officials to whom it was addressed ‘to take urgent and
necessary measures to preserve the fruits of the domain to the
State, especially ivory and rubber.’ By ‘fruits of the domain’
King Leopold meant the products of the soil throughout the
‘vacant lands’ which he had attributed to himself, as already
explained, by the decree of 1885. The King’s instructions were
immediately followed, and three circulars, dated respectively
Bangala, 15th December, 1891, Basankusu, 8th May, 1892, and
Yokoma, 14th February, 1892, were issued by the officials in
question. Circular Number 1 forbade the natives to hunt
elephants unless they brought the tusks to the State’s
officers. Circular Number 2 forbade the natives to collect
rubber unless they brought it to the State’s officers.
Circular Number 3 forbade the natives to collect either ivory
or rubber unless they brought the articles to the State’s
officers, and added that ‘merchants purchasing such articles
from the natives, whose right to collect them the State only
recognised provided that they were brought to it, would be
looked upon as receivers of stolen goods and denounced to the
judicial authorities.’ Thus did the Sovereign of the Congo
State avail himself of the additional prestige conferred upon
him by the Brussels Conference. …
{137}
"In theory, then, the decrees of September, 1891, and October,
1892, made of the native throughout the _Domaine Privé_ a
serf. In theory a serf he remained, for a little while. But as
the grip of Africa’s regenerator tightened upon the _Domaine
Privé_, as the drilled and officered cannibal army, armed
with repeating rifles, gradually grew and grew until it was
larger than the native forces kept up by any of the great
Powers of Europe on African soil, as the radius of the rubber
taxes was extended, as portions of the country began to be
farmed out to so-called 'Companies' whose agents were also
officials of the King, the native of the _Domaine Privé_
became a serf not in theory only but in fact, ground down,
exploited, forced to collect rubber at the bayonet’s point,
compelled to pay onerous tribute to men whose salaries depend
upon the produce returns from their respective stations—the
punishment for disobedience, slothfulness or inability to
comply with demands ever growing in extortion, being anything
from mutilation to death, accompanied by the destruction of
villages and crops."
_E. D. Morel,
The Belgian Curse in Africa
(Contemporary Review, March, 1902)._
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1903-1905.
The alleged oppressiveness, barbarity, and rapacity of its
administration under King Leopold.
Observations of Lord Cromer on the Nile border.
Reports of a British Consular Officer, and of King Leopold’s
Belgian Commission.
Action of the British Government.
Serious accusations of oppression and barbarity in the
exploiting of the natural wealth of the so-called Independent
Congo State, under the administration of its royal proprietor,
King Leopold, of Belgium, were beginning to be made a dozen
years ago, as will be seen by reference to the subject in
Volume VI. of this work. The King and the companies which
operated in the region under his grants were reputed to be
taking enormous profits from it. Of one of those
concessionaire companies, sometimes referred to as the A. B.
I. R. Co. and sometimes as "the Abir," it was stated in 1901
that its £40,000 of shares could have been sold for
£2,160,000, and that half of its profits went to Leopold. But,
as was said later by a member of the British Parliament, who
wrote on the subject in one of the reviews, "meanwhile Europe
was becoming aware of the price that was being paid in Africa
for these profits in Belgium. Travellers, missionaries of
various nationalities, administrators in the neighbouring
territories belonging to England and France, sent home graphic
reports of the cruel oppression that was being practised on
the helpless population. In England especially, through the
efforts of Sir Charles Dilke, of Mr. Fox-Bourne, the secretary
of the Aborigines Protection Society, of Mr. E. D. Morel and
of other disinterested men, public opinion was informed of the
truth. In May, 1903, a resolution, which I had the honor of
moving in the House of Commons, calling upon the Government to
take action with a view to the abatement of the evils
prevalent in the Congo Free State, was accepted by Mr. Balfour
and unanimously passed. A diplomatic correspondence ensued
between the two governments. The British Consul in the Lower
Congo, Mr. Roger Casement, was sent on a tour of inquiry into
the interior, and his lengthy and detailed report fully
confirmed—in some respect extending—the indictment that had
been drawn. A Congo Reform Association was founded, and
immediately secured influential support. … At last King
Leopold, pressed by the despatches of the British Government
and bowing to the storm of public opinion, yielded so far as
to authorise further inquiry into the charges that had been
made. The investigation by an International Commission, which
had been proposed, he rejected. He nominated three
Commissioners of his selection, one a legal officer in the
service of the Belgian Government, one a judge in the service
of the Congo State, and the third a Swiss jurist of repute. In
October, 1904, the Commission reached the Congo. It stayed for
five months and made an extended journey into the interior.
After an unexplained delay of eight months its report was
published on the 6th of November of this year [1905]. …
"Had the report embodied an acquittal of the Congo State it
would not, under the circumstances, have been surprising. The
Commissioners, however, have to a great degree risen superior
to their natural prepossessions. … It is most regrettable …
that they present no minutes of the evidence taken before
them—a circumstance which deprives the report of actuality
and force, and prevents outside observers from drawing their
own conclusions from the facts which had been ascertained. But
the inquiry was painstaking. The case was fairly tried. The
judgment is an honest judgment.
"Being honest, it is necessarily a condemnation. The Belgian
defenders of the Congo Government, who were led by a
conception of patriotic duty as profoundly false as that of
the anti-Dreyfusards in France to deny everything and to meet
the critics merely with unceasing torrents of abuse, now have
their answer. A tribunal, not of our choosing, selected by the
defendant in their cause, has shown that those who denounced
Congo misrule were in the right, that the atrocities were not
imaginary, that a cruel oppression of the natives has been
proceeding unchecked for years."
_Herbert Samuel,
The Congo State
(Contemporary Review, December, 1905)._
Before this report appeared many witnesses had testified for
and against the impeached Government and its commercial
monopoly of the Congo State. Atrocities of slaughter,
mutilation and flogging, committed by the soldiery, the
sentries and other extortioners of a labor tax from the
helpless natives, were asserted and denied. It is best,
perhaps, to drop these blackest counts from the Congo
indictment, because of the controversy over them; and enough
remains in the Report of the King’s own Commission of Inquiry,
and in general conditions which are flagrantly in evidence, to
convict King Leopold and his agents of soulless rapacity, in
their treatment of the vast African country that was entrusted
to him by the Conference of Powers assembled at Berlin in
1884-1885.
There is great weight of meaning, for example, in a few words
that were written, in January, 1903, by Lord Cromer, while
returning from a long trip up the Nile, in which his steamer
passed along about eighty miles of Congolese shore. Before
reaching that border of Leopold’s domain he had traversed 1100
miles of the country lately wrested by the British from
dervishes and slave dealers, where, he remarks, "it might well
have been expected that much time would be required to inspire
confidence in the intentions of the new Government." But,
"except in the uninhabitable ‘Sudd’ region," he wrote,
"numerous villages are dotted along the banks of the river.
{138}
The people, far from flying at the approach of white men, as
was formerly the case, run along the banks, making signs for
the steamer to stop. It is clear that the Baris, Shilluks, and
Dinkas place the utmost trust and confidence in the British
officers with whom they are brought in contact. …
"The contrast when once Congolese territory is entered is
remarkable. From the frontier to Gondokoro is about 80 miles.
The proper left, or western, bank of the river is Belgian. The
opposite bank is either under the Soudanese or the Uganda
Government. There are numerous islands, and as all these are
under British rule—for the thalweg which, under Treaty, is the
Belgian frontier, skirts the western bank of the river—I
cannot say that I had an opportunity of seeing a full 80 miles
of Belgian territory. At the same time, I saw a good deal, and
I noticed that, whereas there were numerous villages and huts
on the eastern bank and on the islands, on the Belgian side
not a sign of a village existed. Indeed, I do not think that
any one of our party saw a single human being in Belgian
territory, except the Belgian officers and men and the wives
and children of the latter. Moreover not a single native was
to be seen either at Kiro or Lado. I asked the Swedish officer
at Kiro whether he saw much of the natives. He replied in the
negative, adding that the nearest Bari village was situated at
some distance in the interior. The Italian officer at Lado, in
reply to the same question, stated that the nearest native
village was seven hours distant. The reason of all this is
obvious enough. The Belgians are disliked. The people fly from
them, and it is no wonder they should do so, for I am informed
that the soldiers are allowed full liberty to plunder, and
that payments are rarely made for supplies. The British
officers wander, practically alone, over most parts of the
country, either on tours of inspection or on shooting
expeditions. I understand that no Belgian officer can move
outside the settlements without a strong guard."
This is in line with some parts of the experience of Mr.
Casement, the British Consular Officer referred to in the
article quoted above, who travelled for about ten weeks on the
Upper Congo in 1903, and whose report of what he saw includes
such accounts as the following, of conditions around Lake
Matumba:
"Each village I visited around the lake, save that of Q. and
one other, had been abandoned by its inhabitants. To some of
these villages the people have only just returned; to others
they are only now returning, In one I found the bare and burnt
poles of what had been dwellings left standing, and at another
—that of R—the people had fled at the approach of my steamer,
and despite the loud cries of my native guides on board,
nothing could induce them to return, and it was impossible to
hold any intercourse with them. At the three succeeding
villages I visited beyond R., in traversing the lake towards
the south, the inhabitants all fled at the approach of the
steamer, and it was only when they found whose the vessel was
that they could be induced to return."
An incident related by Mr. Casement is this:
"Steaming up a small tributary of the Lulongo, I arrived,
unpreceded by any rumour of my coming, at the village of A. In
an open shed I found two sentries of the La Lulanga Company
guarding fifteen native women, five of whom had infants at the
breast, and three of whom were about to become mothers. The
chief of these sentries, a man called S—who was bearing a
double-barrelled shot-gun, for which he had a belt of
cartridges—at once volunteered an explanation of the reason
for these women’s detention. Four of them, he said, were
hostages who were being held to insure the peaceful settlement
of a dispute between two neighbouring towns, which had already
cost the life of a man. … The remaining eleven women, whom he
indicated, he said he had caught and was detaining as
prisoners to compel their husbands to bring in the right
amount of india-rubber required of them on next market day.
When I asked if it was a woman’s work to collect india-rubber,
he said, ‘No; that, of course, it was man’s work.’ ‘Then why
do you catch the women and not the men?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you
see,’ was the answer, ‘if I caught and kept the men, who would
work the rubber? But if I catch their wives, the husbands are
anxious to have them home again, and so the rubber is brought
in quickly and quite up to the mark.’ When I asked what would
become of these women if their husbands failed to bring in the
right quantity of rubber on the next market day, he said at
once that then they would be kept there until their husbands
had redeemed them."
_Parliamentary Papers, Africa,
Number 1 (1904), Cd. 1933._
But the facts which condemn the Congo administration most
conclusively are found in the report of the Commission of
Inquiry appointed by King Leopold himself,—especially in what
it represents of the heartless oppression of the labor tax, or
labor imposed on the natives, in their compulsory carrying of
goods or collection of rubber, food and wood, for the State
and for the companies that operate under the King’s grants. As
to the labor tax exacted in food, for example, the Commission
expresses itself as follows:
"The decree fixes at forty hours per month the work which each
native owes to the State. This time, considered as a maximum,
is certainly not excessive, especially if one takes account of
the fact that the work ought to be remunerated; but as in the
immense majority of cases … it is not precisely the work which
is demanded of the native, but rather a quantity of products
equivalent to forty hours of work, the criterion of time
disappears in reality and is replaced by an equivalent
established by the Commissioner of the district after diverse
methods. …
"_Chikwangue_ (kwanga)is nothing but manioc bread. … The
preparation of this food requires many operations: the
clearing of the forest, the planting of manioc, the digging up
of the root and its transformation into _chikwangue_,
which comprises the operations of separating the fibers and
stripping the bark, pulverizing, washing, making it into
bundles, and cooking it. All these operations, except clearing
the land, fall to the women. The _chikwangues_ so
prepared are carried by the natives to the neighboring post
and served for the food supply of the personnel of the
State—soldiers and laborers. … As the _chikwangue_ keeps
only a few days, the native, even by redoubling his activity,
cannot succeed in freeing himself from his obligations for any
length of time.
{139}
The requirement, even if it does not take all his time,
oppresses him continually by the weight of its recurrent
demands, which deprive the tax of its true character and
transform it into an incessant _corvée_. … Doubtless the
adage, ‘time is money,’ cannot be applied to the natives of the
Congo; it is none the less inadmissible that a taxpayer should
be obliged to travel over ninety-three miles to carry to the
place of collection a tax which represents about the value of
twenty-nine cents. …
"Natives inhabiting the environs of Lulonga were forced to
journey in canoes to Nouvelle-Anvers, which represents a
distance of forty to fifty miles, every two weeks, to carry
their fish; and taxpayers have been seen to submit to
imprisonment for delays which were perhaps not chargeable to
them, if we take into account the considerable distances to be
covered periodically to satisfy the requirements of the tax."
As applied to the collection of rubber, the so-called labor
tax was found by the commission to consume so much of the time
of the natives subjected to it that it practically made slaves
of them, and nothing less.
When the abused native is pretendedly paid for his labor or
its product, it is by some trifle in metal or flimsy woven
stuff, which costs the State and its tributary companies next
to nothing and is next to worthless to the recipient.
And not only does the State exercise over the unfortunate
subjects that were delivered to it an authority of Government
which appears to be little else than a power of extortion, but
it has taken all their lands from them, substantially, and
left them next to nothing on which to perform any labor for
themselves. It has decreed to itself the ownership of all land
not included in the native villages or not under cultivation.
Concerning which decree the Commission remarks:
"As the greater part of the land in the Congo has never been
under cultivation, this interpretation gives to the State a
proprietary right, absolute and exclusive, to almost all the
land, and as a consequence it can grant to itself all the
product of the soil and prosecute as robbers those who gather
the smallest fruit and as accomplices those who buy the same.
… It thus happens sometimes that not only have the natives
been prohibited from moving their villages, but they have been
refused permission to go, even for a time, to a neighboring
village without a special permit."
In the summer of 1903 the British Government was moved to
address a formal communication to all the Powers which had
been parties to the Act of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885,
whereby the Congo State was created and entrusted to King
Leopold, asking them to consider whether the system of
government and of trade monopoly established in that State was
in conformity with the provisions of the Act. The British
Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, in his despatch (August 8,
1903), rehearsed at length the charges that were brought
against the Congo administration, concerning its extortion of
labor from the natives by a method "but little different from
that formerly employed to obtain slaves," saying: "His
Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent
these accusations may be true; but they have been so
repeatedly made, and have received such wide credence, that it
is no longer possible to ignore them, and the question has now
arisen, whether the Congo State can be considered to have
fulfilled the special pledges, given under the Berlin Act, to
watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and to care
for their moral and material advancement."
At the same time, the dispatch called the attention of the
Powers to the question of rights of trade in the Congo,
saying: "Article I of the Berlin Act provides that the trade
of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom in the basin of
the Congo; and Article V provides that no Power which
exercises sovereign rights in the basin shall be allowed to
grant therein a monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of
trade. In the opinion of His Majesty’s Government, the system
of trade now existing in the Independent State of the Congo is
not in harmony with these provisions. … 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."
_Parliamentary Papers, Africa,
Number 14 (1903), Cd. 1809._
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1904.
Feeling in Belgium concerning the charges of oppression and
inhumanity to the natives.
See (in this Volume)
BELGIUM: A. D. 1904.
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
Reform Decrees and their small effect.
Continued reports of rapacious exploitation.
Concession secured by American capitalists.
Annexation of the State by Belgium.
Recognition of the annexation withheld by
Great Britain and the United States.
Apparently the endeavor of the British Government to set in
motion some action of the Powers which had been parties to the
creation of the Congo State, for the purpose of ascertaining
whether the provisions of the Berlin Act were being complied
with in the administration of that great trust, had no
practical result. During the next two years the Congo
Government was persistent in denying and attempting to refute
some parts of the reports sent home by British consular
officers in the Congo; but after the publication of the report
of its own investigating Commission, in 1905, there seems to
have been more reticence observed. In June, 1906, a series of
new decrees, supposed to embody the recommendations of the
Reforms Commission, was sanctioned by the King. But the
Consuls who reported to London from the Congo country do not
seem to have found the wretched natives much relieved by these
decrees. Vice-Consul Armstrong, writing from Boma December,
1907, after a prolonged journey through rubber-collecting
regions, declared his conviction that "the people worked from
twenty to twenty-five days a month" to satisfy their labor
tax. He added:
"The improvement that has been made by the application of the
Reform Decrees of June 1906 is solely in the withdrawal of
armed sentries, a reform which the serious decimation of the
population by the sentries demanded. … I saw nothing which led
me to view the occupation of this country in the light of an
Administration.
{140}
The undertakings of the Government are solely commercial, with
a sufficient administrative power to insure the safety of its
personnel and the success of its enterprise. … The
following is an estimate of the profits of the State on their
rubber tax. I take the village of N’gongo as being a large
one, and one of the few villages that supply the amount
actually assessed:—
Amount assessed yearly. 1,440 kilograms of rubber.
£ s. d.
1,440 kilograms of rubber at 10 fr. 576 0 0
Amount paid to natives at 50 c. per kilogram 28 16 0
"I calculate the rubber at 10 fr. per kilogram, the value
placed upon it by the State in the Commercial Report issued
this year. The market value in Antwerp is from 12 fr. to 13
fr. per kilogram. From this amount of 576£. must be deducted
the cost of transport, which cannot be more than 2 fr. per
kilogram rendered at Antwerp, so that the net profits derived
from this one village would be a little more than 456£. per
annum. One hundred and twenty natives, together with their
wives and children, which would bring the population of the
town to about 400 souls, share this amount of 28£ 16s., and as
this is paid in cloth at 7½d. per yard and salt at 1s. 7½d.
per kilogram, it is evident that they cannot receive very much
each, and that they complain of their remuneration."
These were not the only official witnesses now testifying to
the barbarities of commercial exploitation that were
perpetrated in the Congo country under pretences of
administering the Government of a State. Reports to the same
effect were coming to the Government of the United States from
its Consuls in the Congo. Consul-General C. R. Slocum wrote on
the 1st of December, 1906, to the Department of State at
Washington:
"I have the honour to report that I find the Congo Free State,
under the present regime, to be nothing but a vast commercial
enterprise for the exploitation of the products of the
country, particularly that of ivory and rubber. Admitted by
Belgian officials and other foreigners here, the State, as I
find it, is not open to trade in the intended sense of article
5 of the Berlin Act under which the State was formed."
A year later, the succeeding Consul-General of the United
States in the Congo State, Mr. James A. Smith, made a similar
report:
"In excluding the native," he wrote, "from any proprietary
right in the only commodities he possessed which would serve
as a trade medium—that is, the products of the soil—and in
claiming for itself and granting to a few concessionary
companies in which it holds an interest exclusive ownership of
these products, the Administration, in its commercial
capacity, has effectively shut the door to free trade and
created a vast monopoly in all articles the freedom of buying
and selling which alone could form a proper basis for
legitimate trade transactions between the native and
independent purchasers. Competition, by which alone can a
healthy condition of trade be maintained, has been entirely
eliminated. The Government is but one tremendous commercial
organization; its administrative machinery is worked to bar
out all outside trade and to absolutely control for its own
benefit and the concessionary companies the natural resources
of the country."
In the same report Mr. Smith gave details of an experiment he
had made, in conjunction with the _chef de secteur_ at
Yambata, to test the truth of the assertions made by the
natives as to the length of time necessary to gather the
rubber which they are compelled to furnish. The place for the
experiment was selected by the _chef de secteur_, and he
chose the five natives who were employed in the experiment,
and who were promised rewards as an incentive to do their
best. The men worked for four hours, and although Mr. Smith
vouches for the fact that they did not lose a minute, they
only succeeded in gathering 650 grammes. From this, as Mr.
Smith argues, the amount of time they would have to spend in
collecting the rubber tax works out at 93 hours a month, or,
counting eight hours a day, at 140 days a year. This did not
include the time spent in travelling to and from the
rubber-bearing districts.
Before this time, American interest in the Congo State had
become more than humanitarian, and more than a commercial
interest in the general opportunities of trade; for heavy
American capitalists had secured concessions from King Leopold
in a large territory for the development of railways, rubber
production and mines. The fact was announced in the fall of
1906, and the names of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Thomas F.
Ryan, Harry Payne Whitney, Edward B. Aldrich and the Messrs.
Guggenheim were mentioned as prominent in the group to which
the grant was made.
Under the Convention of 1890 between King Leopold and the
Congo State, as one party, and the Kingdom of Belgium as the
other, it became the right of the latter, on the expiration of
ten years, in 1900, to annex the Congo State to itself.
See, in Volume VI. of this work,
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1900.
The right was not then exercised; but the question of taking
over the sovereignty of that great African domain came under
warm discussion in Belgium before many years, and, finally, in
1908, it reached the point of a keen negotiation of terms with
the King, attended by lively conflicts in the Belgian
Chambers. While the question was thus pending in Belgium, the
British Government took occasion to express its views to the
Belgian Government, as to the obligations which such an
annexation would involve. This was done on the 27th of March,
1908, in a despatch from the Foreign Minister, Sir Edward
Grey, communicating an extended "Memorandum respecting
Taxation and Currency in the Congo Free State." The language
of the despatch, in part, was as follows:
"His Majesty’s Government fully recognize that the choice of
the means by which the administration of the Congo may be
brought into line by the Berlin Act rests exclusively with
Belgium. Nevertheless, while disclaiming all idea of
interference, His Majesty’s Government feel that in fairness
they should leave the Belgian Government in no doubt that in
their opinion the existing administration of the Congo State
has not fulfilled the objects for which the State was
originally recognized, or the conditions of Treaties, and that
changes are therefore required, which should effect the
following objects:
1. Relief of the natives from excessive taxation.
2. The grant to the natives of sufficient land to ensure their
ability to obtain not only the food they require, but also
sufficient produce of the soil to enable them to buy and sell
as in other European Colonies.
3. The possibility for traders whatever their nationality may
be to acquire plots of land of reasonable dimensions in any
part of the Congo for the erection of factories so as to
enable them to establish direct trade relations with the
natives. …
{141}
"Taking the three points enumerated above in order, it appears
to His Majesty’s Government that—
"1. As regards the question of taxation in labour, the abuses
to which the system has given rise have only been rendered
possible by the absence of a proper standard of value. They
believe, therefore, that the only sure and efficacious means
of precluding the existence of such abuses in the future is
the introduction of currency throughout the State at the
earliest possible date. Both the Reports of the Commission of
Inquiry and the experience of His Majesty’s Consular officers
agree in the conclusion that the native has learnt the use of
money, and that currency would be welcomed by all classes,
native and European alike.
"2. The natives in the concessionary areas should not be
compelled, by either direct or indirect means, to render their
labour to the Companies without remuneration. The introduction
of currency should contribute greatly to the protection of the
native against the illicit and excessive exactions on the part
of private individuals. Such protection, however, cannot be
adequately secured unless the latter be compelled to pay the
native in specie at a fair rate to be fixed by law.
"3. They would urge that a large increase should be made in
the land allotted to the natives."
The exceptional failure of the Congo State, among African
colonies, to introduce the use of currency in transactions
with the natives, and the connection of this failure with the
state of things existing there, is discussed at length in the
Memorandum, with a practical summing up in these sentences:
"The Secretaries-General said the native in the Congo had no
specie. True, but why has he no specie? Because, as already
explained, during the twenty-three years that the Congo State
has been in existence no serious attempt, in spite of all
assertions to the contrary, has ever been made by the State to
introduce currency on a sufficiently large scale. In every
other European Colony in Africa has the native come to learn
the practical value of a medium of exchange. What are the
reasons that the Congo State should stand in an exceptional
position in this respect? They are unfortunately obvious
enough. The truth is that it is precisely owing to the absence
of a proper standard of value that the Congo Government and
the Concessionary Companies have been able to abuse the system
of taxation in labour, and realize enormous profits out of the
incessant labour wrung from the population in the guise of
taxation."
This communication from Great Britain to the Belgian
Government was followed soon (in April) by memoranda from the
Government of the United States, setting forth the hopes and
expectations of administrative reform with which it
contemplated the proposed annexation of the Congo State.
A few months later the treaty of annexation was agreed upon,
and the annexation consummated by an Act of the Belgian
Parliament, promulgated on the 20th of October, 1908. To an
announcement of the fact by the Belgian Minister at
Washington, Secretary Root replied at considerable length, in
a communication which bears the date of June 11, 1909: "The
Government of the United States," said the Secretary, "has
observed with much interest the progress of the negotiations
looking to such a transfer, in the expectation that under the
control of Belgium the condition of the natives might be
beneficially improved and the engagements of the treaties to
which the United States is a party, as well as the high aims
set forth in the American memoranda of April 7 and 16, 1908,
and declared in the Belgium replies thereto, might be fully
realized.
"The United States would also be gratified by the assurance
that the Belgian Government will consider itself specifically
bound to discharge the obligations assumed by the Independent
State of the Congo in the Brussels Convention of July 2, 1890,
an assurance which the expressions already made by the
Government of Belgium in regard to its own course as a party
to that convention leave no doubt is in entire accordance with
the sentiments of that Government. Among the particular
clauses of the Brussels Convention which seem to the United
States to be specially relevant to existing conditions in the
Congo region are the clauses of Article II., which include
among the objects of the convention:
"‘To diminish intestine wars between tribes by means of
arbitration; to initiate them in agricultural labour and in
the industrial arts so as to increase their welfare; to raise
them to civilization and bring about the extinction of
barbarous customs. …
"‘To give aid and protection to commercial enterprises; to
watch over their legality by especially controlling contracts
for service with natives; and to prepare the way for the
foundation of permanent centres of cultivation and of
commercial settlements.’
"The United States has been forced to the conclusion that in
several respects the system inaugurated by the Independent
State of the Congo has, in its practical operation, worked out
results inconsistent with these conventional obligations and
calling for very substantial and even radical changes in order
to attain conformity therewith." Moreover, it renders nugatory
the provisions of the successive declarations and conventions,
cited by the Secretary, which have given such rights in the
Congo State to citizens of the United States and others as
must be maintained.
"It should always be remembered," wrote Mr. Root, "that the
basis of the sovereignty of the Independent State of the Congo
over all its territory was in the treaties made by the native
Sovereigns who ceded the territory for the use and benefit of
free States established and being established there under the
care and supervision of the International Association, so that
the very nature of the title forbids the destruction of the
tribal rights upon which it rests without securing to the
natives an enjoyment of their land which shall be a full and
adequate equivalent for the tribal rights destroyed."
Referring to a statement made in the Belgian reply given to
his memorandum of April 16, which he quotes as in these
words:—
{142}
"When it annexes the possessions of the Independent State
Belgium will inherit its obligations as well as its rights; it
will be able to fulfil all the engagements made with the
United States by the declarations of April 22, 1884"—Mr. Root
closes his letter with these remarks:
"It would be gratifying to the United States to know that the
last clause of the statement just quoted is not intended to
confine the rights of the United States in the Independent
State to the declarations of the Commercial Association which
preceded the creation of the Congo State as a sovereign power,
but includes the conventional rights conferred upon the United
States by the treaty concluded with the Independent State
immediately after its recognition.
"In the absence of a fuller understanding on all these points,
I confine myself for the present to acknowledging your note of
November 4 last and taking note of the announcement therein
made."
Thus no recognition was given to the Belgian annexation.
Recognition was held in abeyance, awaiting further information
and evidence of reform in the administration of the Congo
State. And this is the attitude assumed by the British
Government, which waited long and with growing impatience for
assurances from Belgium, with proceedings that would give sign
of making them good. On the 24th of February, 1909, the
subject came up in Parliament, with assertions that
"oppression of the natives was still going on just as before
the annexation," and that "Great Britain had waited for months
while the cruelties against which she had protested still
continued." In the debate, Sir Charles Dilke referred to the
harmony of action in the matter by the United States and Great
Britain, and expressed his conviction that "the cooperation of
two such powerful Governments in the cause of humanity would
be irresistible." Sir Edward Grey, speaking for the Ministry,
said:
"I am glad that in the course of the debate it has been
emphasized that this attitude is not ours alone, but that the
United States has spoken with equal emphasis and taken up the
same position. I am sorry that no other Power has taken up the
same position so strongly; but as there is only one Power
which has declared itself so definitely on the question as
ourselves, I should like to say that I am glad it is the
United States."
Alluding to a remark made by one of the speakers in the
debate, that the Government might have prevented the
annexation of the State by Belgium, Sir Edward said:
"I do not think we should have prevented the annexation, but
in any case I should not have tried to prevent the annexation.
And for this reason among others—that if Belgium was not going
to take the Congo State in hand and put it right, who was? I
have never been able to answer that question. Certainly not
ourselves, because we have always denied the intention of
assuming any responsibility over an enormous tract of land
where we have sufficient responsibility already."
The Foreign Secretary concluded his speech by saying:
"If Belgium makes the administration of the Congo humane and
brings it into accord, in practice and spirit, with the
administration which exists in our own and neighbouring
African colonies, no country will more cordially welcome that
state of things than this or more warmly congratulate Belgium.
But we cannot commit ourselves to countersign, so to say, by
recognition a second time, the system of administration which
has existed under the old regime."
Again, in May, the question came up in Parliament, with
impatient criticism of the Government for not taking
peremptory measures to compel a reformation of Belgian rule in
the Congo State, one speaker suggesting a "peaceful blockade"
of the mouth of the Congo. Sir Edward Grey replied:
"If this question were rashly managed it might make a European
question compared to which those which we have had to deal
with in the last few months might be child’s play. Take, for
instance, the question of peaceful blockade. It is no good
talking of peaceful blockade. Blockade is blockade. It is the
use of force. If you are to have blockade you must be prepared
to go to war, and a blockade of the mouth of the Congo means
blockading a river which is not the property of the Congo or
Belgian Government. They have one bank of the river. It is a
river which by international treaty must be opened to
navigation, and if you are to blockade to any effect you must
be prepared to stop every ship going in or out of the Congo,
whether under the French, Belgian, German, or whatever flag it
is. Surely if you are going to pledge yourself to take steps
of that kind, and to accept the responsibility for them, it is
not too much to say that you must be prepared to raise a
European question which would be of the gravest kind. I do not
say there are not circumstances which might justify a question
of that kind, but do not let the House think that by smooth
words, such as by applying the adjective ‘peaceful’ to
blockade, you are going to minimize what will be the ultimate
consequences of the step you are taking."
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1909 (October).
Programme of reforms promised by the Belgian Government.
The programme of long promised reforms to be instituted by the
Belgian Government in its administration of the now annexed
Congo State was announced in the Belgian Chamber on the 28th
of October, 1909, by the Minister for the Colonies, M. Renkin.
"He repeated his solemn assurance that the charges of cruelty
or oppression made against the Belgian Colonial Administration
were false. He had questioned missionaries, officials, chiefs,
and other natives during his visit, and heard nothing to
justify the accusation. Individual breaches of the law might
possibly have occurred, but every abuse brought to the notice
of the authorities was immediately made the object of inquiry.
"It was useless, he said, to refer to the past; the situation
had been radically altered by the annexation. As regards the
land system, the assignment of vacant lands to the State was
juridically unassailable, but they must also have regard to
the development of the natives. The natives would therefore be
granted the right to take the produce of the soil in the
Domain. This would be accomplished in three stages. On July 1,
1910, the Lower Congo, Stanley Pool, Ubangi, Bangala, Kwango,
Kasai, Katanga, the southern portion of the Eastern Province,
Aruwimi, and the banks of the river as far as Stanleyville
would be opened to freedom of trade. On July 1, 1911, the
Domain of the Crown, and on July 1, 1912, the Welle district
would also be thrown open. Furthermore, the Government would
levy taxes in money, and the system of the provisioning of the
agents would be abolished."
{143}
M. Renkin said furthermore that in regard to the territories
held by _concessionnaires_ in the Congo the Government
would make an investigation with a view to ascertaining
whether it would not be advisable to make fresh arrangements
in agreement with the persons interested.
Writing from Brussels a mouth later, an English correspondent
represents the Belgian Reformers, who had most bitterly
denounced the atrocities of the Leopold regime in the Congo
State, as believing that M. Renkin's scheme is on the whole a
reasonable and satisfactory scheme, and above all a practical
scheme, that the Belgian Government are sincerely determined
to carry it through, and that, even if there were any
sufficient reason for doubting their sincerity, the Belgian
nation is in earnest and has the means of enforcing the
execution of the reforms by the exercise of the Parliamentary
control with which it is now for the first time invested over
the affairs of the Congo as a consequence of annexation.
On the other hand, English opinion, which had been roused to
much heat on the Congo question, is far from satisfied with
the Belgian proposals, and criticises them with a sharpness
which the Belgians resent.
----------CONGO STATE: End--------
----------CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Start--------
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Australia:
Undertakings of Irrigation and Forestry.
During a brief visit to the United States in 1902, Sir Edmund
Barton, then Premier of the Commonwealth of Australia,
contributed to _The Independent_ an article on "Australia
and her Problems," in which he wrote:
"Another great problem with which we are struggling is that of
irrigation, and a joint irrigation scheme is afoot for using
the waters of the Murray, our greatest river, to fertilize
lands in New South Wales and Victoria. The Murray forms the
boundary of those two States and afterward flows through South
Australia. It is to the interest of New South Wales and
Victoria to use the waters of the Murray for irrigation
purposes, and it is to the interest of South Australia to use
the Murray for navigation. We hope to harmonize those
interests and are working to that end.
"Just before I left Australia I attended a conference, held on
the border, between representatives of the various States as a
result of which each has appointed a hydraulic engineer to a
joint commission on irrigation. These will make an
investigation and report their opinion in regard to the best
practicable system for conserving, storing and distributing
the Murray’s waters without interfering with its navigation.
We have good reason to believe that by means of a system of
locks and weirs it is quite possible to irrigate a very large
extent of dry country by means of the Murray without injuring
its navigability. Later we will take up the problem of using
the waters of the Darling in a similar way. It is a very long
river, which during the rainy season sends an immense Volume
of water into the Murray.
"Another of our problems is in regard to forestry. We have
planted some trees but not nearly enough of them, and cannot
yet tell anything about results. Along with this tree
planting, also, denudation of our timber has been going on,
for Australian hard woods, being impervious to water, are now
used all over the world for street paving purposes. Great harm
has been done, and the waste is still going on, for our
national Government cannot interfere in the matter, and the
land owners are in many instances reckless. The remedy must
come from the common sense of the people."
Since the above was written, progress has been made in
carrying out the projects of irrigation, as was stated in a
speech by Lord Northcote after his return to England, in the
autumn of 1909, from five years of service as Governor-General
of Australia. "Both in New South Wales and Victoria," he said,
"very large irrigation works are in progress, and will be
completed in a very short time, adding enormously to the
acreage of land fit for cultivation."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Canada:
The Dominion Forest Reserves Act.
Irrigation in the Northwest.
A Dominion Act of 1906, thus short-titled, provides as
follows:
"All Dominion lands within the respective boundaries of the
reserves mentioned in the schedule to this Act are hereby
withdrawn from sale, settlement and occupancy under the
provisions of the Dominion Lands Act, or of any other Act, or
of any regulations made under the said Act or any such Act,
with respect to mines or mining or timber or timber licenses
or leases or any other matter whatsoever; and after the
passing of this Act no Dominion lands within the boundaries of
the said reserves shall be sold, leased or otherwise disposed
of, or be located or settled upon, and no person shall use or
occupy any part of such lands, except under the provisions of
this Act or of regulations made thereunder."
The schedule referred to lists 21 Forest Reserves in British
Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. They are placed
under the management of the Superintendent of Forestry, for
the maintenance and protection of the growing timber, the
animals and birds in them, the fish in their waters and their
water supply, the Governor in Council to make the needed
regulations.
In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute at London,
England, in January, 1910, Mr. C. W. Peterson, Manager of the
Canadian Pacific Irrigation Colonization Company, gave the
following account of what is being done in the Arid Belt, so
called, near Calgary, in the Canadian Northwest:
"The irrigated land in Alberta and Saskatchewan nearly
equalled half of the total irrigated area of the United
States. In the year 1894 the Dominion Government withdrew from
sale and homestead entry a tract of land containing some
millions of acres located east of the city of Calgary, along
the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The object of
that reservation was to provide for the construction,
ultimately, of an irrigation scheme to cover the fertile Bow
River Valley. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company undertook
to construct the gigantic irrigation system in question, and
selected as part of its land grant a block comprising three
million acres of the best agricultural lands. It had now been
opened for colonization, and this project—the greatest of the
kind on the American continent—was being pushed to its
completion. The tract had an average width of forty miles from
north to south, and extended eastwards from Calgary 150 miles."
{144}
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Egypt: A. D. 1909.
Completion of the Esneh Barrage.
An important addition to the irrigation works in Egypt,
supplementing the great dam at Assouan and the Assiout
barrage, was completed in February, 1909, when the Esneh
barrage was formally opened, on the 9th of that month. Esneh
is a town of some 25,000 inhabitants, situated in Upper Egypt,
on the west bank of the Nile, and the work now completed will,
even in the lowest of floods, ensure a plentiful supply of
water to a great tract of land in the Nile valley from Esneh
northwards. In deciding to undertake the construction of this
latest barrage, at a point about 100 miles north of the
Assouan reservoir, the Government were influenced by the great
success of the Assiout barrage, but that work differs from the
new barrage in being designed as a low-water summer regulator,
whereas the function of the Esneh barrage is to hold up the
water in low floods.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Germany:
The work begun a century ago, and its result.
"Germany, a century ago, faced just such a situation as now
confronts us [the United States]. Then there began the work
which we must now undertake. New forests were planted,
wherever the land was unsuitable for other purposes. This
planting was done year after year, so that each year a new
tract would come to maturity. Forest wardens watched for
fires, and laws forbade careless hunters setting fires in the
woods. Timbermen were forced to gather and burn what twigs
from the slashings could not be used in the still or burned
for charcoal, and broad lanes were left through the forests as
stops for fires. In this way there arose those magnificent
German forests which now return the empire an average net
annual profit of two dollars and a half for each acre, on land
which is otherwise unusable; and, besides, give their services
free for the storage of water and for the retention of the
soil.
"In our own land something of this sort has already been done.
New York has nearly two million acres of land in forest
reserves which are being carefully tended. Pennsylvania has
half as much. Minnesota is already securing considerable
profit from the management of its white pine reserves and is
seeding down large areas; and the other lake states are also
moving, but all this is being done slowly, and lacks much of
the energy and cooperation which should accompany it."
_J. L. Mathews,
The Conservation of our National Resources
(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1908)._
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Great Britain:
Outline of undertakings by the Government in 1909.
Development and Road Improvement Act.
In his Budget speech to the House of Commons April 29, 1909,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. David Lloyd-George, gave
a broad indication of undertakings contemplated by the
Government, in forestry work (afforestation, or
reafforestation) and on other lines directed toward a more
effective preservation and development of the natural
resources of the country. In the afforestation of the waste
lands of the country, he said, "We are far behind every other
civilized country in the world. I have figures which are very
interesting on this point. In Germany, for instance, out of a
total area of 133 million acres, 34 millions, or nearly 26 per
cent., are wooded; in France, out of 130 million acres, 17 per
cent.; even in a small and densely-populated country such as
Belgium, 1,260,000 acres are wooded, or 17 per cent. In the
United Kingdom, on the other hand, out of 77 million acres,
only 3 millions, or 4 per cent., are under wood. Sir Herbert
Maxwell, who has made a study of this question for a good many
years, and whose moderation of statement is beyond challenge,
estimates that, in 1906, ‘eight millions were paid annually in
salaries for the administration, formation, and preservation
of German forests, representing the maintenance of about
200,000 families, or about 1,000,000 souls; and that in
working up the raw material yielded by the forests wages were
earned annually to the amount of 30 millions sterling,
maintaining about 600,000 families, or 3,000,000 souls.’ The
Committee will there perceive what an important element this
is in the labour and employment of a country. Any one who will
take the trouble to search out the census returns will find
that the number of people directly employed in forest work in
this country is only 16,000. And yet the soil and the climate
of this country are just as well adapted for the growth of
marketable trees as that of the States of Germany. Recently we
have been favoured with a striking report of a Royal
Commission, very ably presided over by my honourable friend
the member for Cardiff. A perusal of the names attached to
that report will secure for it respectful and favourable
consideration. It outlines a very comprehensive and
far-reaching scheme for planting the wastes of this country.
The systematic operation which the Commission recommend is a
gigantic one, and, before the Government can commit themselves
to it in all its details, it will require very careful
consideration by a body of experts skilled in forestry. I am
informed by men whom I have consulted, and whose opinion on
this subject I highly value, that there is a good deal of
preliminary work which ought to be undertaken in this country
before the Government could safely begin planting on the large
scale indicated in that report. … I am also told that we
cannot command the services in this country of a sufficient
number of skilled foresters to direct planting. …
"I doubt whether there is a great industrial country in the
world which spends less money directly on work connected with
the development of its resources than we do. Take the case of
agriculture alone. Examine the Budgets of foreign countries—I
have done it with great advantage in other directions—examine
them from this particular point of view, and honourable
members, I think, will be rather ashamed at the contrast
between the wise and lavish generosity of countries much
poorer than ours and the short-sighted and niggardly parsimony
with which we dole out small sums of money for the
encouragement of agriculture in our country. …
"I will tell the House what we propose. There is a certain
amount of money, not very much, spent in this country in a
spasmodic kind of way on what I will call the work of national
development—in light railways, in harbours, in indirect but
very meagre assistance to agriculture.
{145}
I propose to gather all these grants together into one grant
that I propose to call a development grant, and this year to
add a sum of £200,000 to that grant for these purposes. … The
grant will be utilized in the promotion of schemes which have
for their purpose the development of the resources of the
country, and will include such objects as the institution of
schools of forestry, the purchase and preparation of land for
afforestation, the setting up of a number of experimental
forests on a large scale, expenditure upon scientific research
in the interests of agriculture, experimental farms, the
improvement of stock—in respect of which I have had a good
many representations from the agricultural community—the
equipment of agencies for disseminating agricultural
instruction, the encouragement and promotion of co-operation,
the improvement of rural transport so as to make markets more
accessible, the facilitation of all well-considered schemes
and measures for attracting labour back to the land by small
holdings or reclamation of wastes."
In realization of this programme an important "Development and
Road Improvement Funds Act" was introduced by Mr. Lloyd-George
in August, and passed, after considerable amendment of its
administrative details in Committee of the Commons and in the
House of Lords. It is divided into two parts, the first
dealing with development, or the aiding and encouraging of
agriculture and other rural industries, inclusive of forestry,
reclamation and drainage of land, improvement of rural
transport, construction and improvement of inland navigation
and harbors, and the development and improvement of fisheries.
The Act enables the Treasury to make free grants and loans,
from a Development Fund fed by an annual Parliamentary vote
and by a charge on the Consolidated Fund. An independent
Development Commission is to be appointed by the Treasury,
consisting of five members appointed for ten years, whose
recommendation for the rejection of applications shall be
final, though not that for their acceptance. The second part
of the Act sets up a Road Board to carry out schemes of road
improvement, either under its own direct control or through
the existing highway authorities.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: North America:
International Conference of Delegates from Canada, Mexico,
and the United States.
The movement instituted in the United States for a better
conservation of the natural resources of the country was
broadened, early in 1909, into a continental and international
movement, by an invitation from President Roosevelt to the
Governments of Canada and Mexico to send delegates to a
general conference on the subject at Washington, for the
purpose of arranging some cooperative and harmonious plans of
action in the three countries. The invitation was cordially
accepted in both of the neighboring countries, and the
delegates sent were met, on the 18th of February, by many of
the leaders of the conservation movement in the United States,
including the National Conservation Commission. After being
received and addressed by the President at the White House, a
two days session of the Conference was held in the diplomatic
room of the State Department, with good results.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Turkey: A. D. 1909.
Reclamation projects in the Tigris-Euphrates Delta.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: United States:
The Great Movement for an Arresting of Waste.
An organized National care-taking of Forests, Waters, Lands,
and Minerals.
Forest Service, Irrigation, Development of Waterways.
It is more than possible that the administration of Government
in the United States under President Roosevelt will be
distinguished, in the judgment of coming generations, most
highly by the impulse and the organization it gave to measures
for conserving the natural resources of the country, in woods,
water sources, mineral deposits and fertile or fertilizable
soils,—rescuing them from a hitherto unrestrained recklessness
of waste. The key-note of a new determination in governmental
policy, pointed to this end, was sounded by the President in
his first Message to Congress, on the 3d of December, 1901,
when he opened the subject largely and earnestly, saying,
among other things, this:
"The preservation of our forests is an imperative business
necessity. We have come to see clearly that whatever destroys
the forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our
well-being. At present the protection of the forest reserves
rests with the General Land Office, the mapping and
description of their timber with the United States Geological
Survey, and the preparation of plans for their conservative
use with the Bureau of Forestry, which is also charged with
the general advancement of practical forestry in the United
States. These various functions should be united in the Bureau
of Forestry, to which they properly belong. The present
diffusion of responsibility is bad from every standpoint. It
prevents that effective cooperation between the Government and
the men who utilize the resources of the reserves, without
which the interests of both must suffer. The scientific
bureaus generally should be put under the Department of
Agriculture. The President should have by law the power of
transferring lands for use as forest reserves to the
Department of Agriculture. He already has such power in the
case of lands needed by the Departments of War and the Navy. …
"The wise administration of the forest reserves will be not
less helpful to the interests which depend on water than to
those which depend on wood and grass. The water supply itself
depends upon the forest. In the arid region it is water, not
land, which measures production. The western half of the
United States would sustain a population greater than that of
our whole country to-day if the waters that now run to waste
were saved and used for irrigation. The forest and water
problems are perhaps the most vital internal questions of the
United States. …
"The forests alone cannot, however, fully regulate and
conserve the waters of the arid region. Great storage works
are necessary to equalize the flow of streams and to save the
flood waters. Their construction has been conclusively shown
to be an undertaking too vast for private effort. Nor can it
be best accomplished by the individual States acting alone.
Far-reaching interstate problems are involved; and the
resources of single States would often be inadequate. It is
properly a national function. at least in some of its
features. …
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"The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents a
different problem. Here it is not enough to regulate the flow
of streams. The object of the Government is to dispose of the
land to settlers who will build homes upon it. To accomplish
this object water must be brought within their reach. …
Whatever the Nation does for the extension of irrigation
should harmonize with, and tend to improve, the condition of
those now living on irrigated land. We are not at the
starting-point of this development. Over two hundred millions
of private capital have already been expended in the
construction of irrigation works, and many million acres of
arid land reclaimed. A high degree of enterprise and ability
has been shown in the work itself; but as much cannot be said
in reference to the laws relating thereto. The security and
value of the homes created depend largely on the stability of
titles to water; but the majority of these rest on the
uncertain foundation of court decisions rendered in ordinary
suits at law. With a few creditable exceptions, the arid
States have failed to provide for the certain and just
division of streams in times of scarcity. Lax and uncertain
laws have made it possible to establish rights to water in
excess of actual uses or necessities, and many streams have
already passed into private ownership, or a control equivalent
to ownership."
_President's Message to Congress,
December 3, 1901._
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
The Nationalizing of Irrigation Works.
The highest quality of statesmanship is represented by such
recommendations as these. So far as concerned the proposed
nationalization of irrigation works, to reclaim the arid lands
of the West, they bore fruit within a year, in the passage by
Congress of the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902. It devoted
most of the proceeds of the sale of public lauds, in Arizona,
California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New
Mexico, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington,
and Wyoming, to a special Reclamation Fund in the Treasury,
for the creation and maintenance of irrigation works. This was
a measure for which the late Major John W. Powell, Director of
the United States Geological Survey, had labored incessantly
for many years. In his book on "The Lands of the Arid Regions"
he was the first to show the possibility of redemption for
most of the wide spaces of land then supposed to be hopeless
desert, and he pleaded with Congress, session after session,
for some national undertaking to store and distribute the
waters from the mountains that would give life to their soil.
In 1888 he succeeded so far as to win authority and means for
investigating the water supply for the region, and from that
time he had kept an efficient small corps of engineers at work
in the survey and measurement of streams, accumulating
information that was ready for immediate use when actual
constructive work was taken in hand. At once, on the passage
of the Reclamation Act, the Director of the Geological Survey,
acting under the Secretary of the Interior, began the
execution of plans already well matured, for irrigation in
Arizona and Nevada; and was able three years later to report
similar undertakings in progress within three of the ten
Territories and thirteen States.
In May, 1908, the following statement of the reclamation work
then in progress appeared in _The Outlook:_ "The work as
a whole rivals the Panama Canal in the labor and expense
involved. The employment of 16,000 men and the expenditure of
$1,250,000 every month are but incidents in the service.
Already the canals completed reach a total of 1,815 miles—as
far as from New York to Denver. Homes have been made for ten
thousand families where before was desert. In the past five
years $33,000,000 has been spent, and the enterprises already
planned will add more than a hundred millions to this sum. Nor
is this money spent in one locality. In New Mexico one of the
largest dams in the world is being constructed. In California
and Nevada great reservoirs and irrigation plants are being
built. In western Kansas the beet-sugar raisers are to have a
$250,000 plant for pumping the ‘underflow,’ or the sheet water
found a few feet beneath the top-soil, of the Arkansas River
Valley to the surface, that ditches may be filled and crops
made certain. On seven great projects, involving the
expenditure of $51,000,000 and the reclamation of over a
million acres, the benefit is directly to the Northwest. These
projects lie in North and South Dakota, Montana, and
Washington. In these States lands that have been considered as
worthless except for the coarsest kind of grazing are being
transformed into productive farms. In South Dakota the largest
earth dam in the world is being constructed, that ninety
thousand acres of land may be made fertile; while just east of
the Yellowstone Park is being built a solid wall of masonry
310 feet high to hold back the waters of the Shoshone River
until a reservoir of ten square miles, capable of irrigating a
hundred thousand acres, is formed. The production of these
irrigated lands is marvelous."
The latest official statistics that are available represent
the total of acres irrigated at the end of the year 1907 as
being 11,000,000, in 167,200 farms, at an average cost (of
constructive work) of $13.46 per acre.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
A National Forest Policy.
Less promptitude of action followed the President's urging of
measures for forest preservation, and his warnings to Congress
and the country, against the consequences of this inaction,
were repeated from year to year. His Message of December,
1904, carried a specially urgent plea for legislation to unify
the national forest work.
"I have repeatedly," he said, "called attention to the
confusion which exists in Government forest matters because
the work is scattered among three independent organizations.
The United States is the only one of the great nations in
which the forest work of the Government is not concentrated
under one department, in consonance with the plainest dictates
of good administration and common sense. The present
arrangement is bad from every point of view. Merely to mention
it is to prove that it should be terminated at once. As I have
repeatedly recommended, all the forest work of the Government
should be concentrated in the Department of Agriculture, where
the larger part of that work is already done, where
practically all of the trained foresters of the Government are
employed, where chiefly in Washington there is comprehensive
first-hand knowledge of the problems of the reserves acquired
on the ground, where all problems relating to growth from the
soil are already gathered, and where all the sciences
auxiliary to forestry are at hand for prompt and effective
coöperation."
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During its following session Congress took the desired action,
and the whole forest service was transferred to the Department
of Agriculture in February, 1905.
Early in June of that year the efforts of the President to
waken attention to the seriousness of the forest destruction
in the country were greatly helped by a notable convention at
Washington of about twelve hundred men, having both interest
and knowledge in the matter, who came together to discuss the
problems involved. They were mostly practical foresters,
intelligent lumbermen, railway men, ranch-owners, engineers
and miners, and their urgency of a systematic conservative
treatment of the surviving forest wealth of the country
carried great weight. The convention was under the direction
of the Secretary of Agriculture, and was addressed by the
President.
During a journey through parts of the Southern States, in
October, 1905, the President took occasion, in some of his
speeches, to urge that a large part, at least, of the rapidly
disappearing forests on the Atlantic side of the country
should be nationalized, for preservation in the manner of the
forest reserves of the Far West. In his Message of 1906 he
submitted this to Congress, as a specific recommendation,
saying that the forests of the White Mountains and the
Southern Appalachian regions need to be preserved, and "cannot
be unless the people of the States in which they lie, through
their representatives in the Congress, secure vigorous action
by the National Government." This proposal encountered strong
opposition from selfish interests, and Congress was prevailed
upon with difficulty to authorize a survey of the forests of
the White Mountains and the Southern Appalachians, which
resulted in a recommendation by the Secretary of Agriculture
that 600,000 acres in the former region and 5,000,000 in the
latter be purchased for a National Reserve. A bill responsive
to this recommendation was passed by the Senate, but rejected
by the House, which appointed a commission, instead, to make
further investigations in the matter. Meantime, in the White
Mountains alone, busy slaughterers of the forests were said to
be stripping three hundred acres per day.
On the eve of the adjournment of Congress in March, 1907, the
President issued a proclamation adding some seventeen millions
of acres of forest lands to the National Forest Reserves
already established. This was just before he signed an Act of
Congress which abridged his authority to create reserves in
Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. It
was a characteristic proceeding, for which the President had
ample power under a statute of 1891, and it simply held the
forests designated in safety from destruction until the
question of their treatment was more carefully considered. The
next Congress, or the next President, could give them up to
private ownership, in whole or in part, if the one or the
other found reason for doing so. Meantime they were sheltered
from the axeman, while undergoing study. As a matter of fact,
Mr. Roosevelt’s successor, President Taft, did conclude that
some of the lands reserved should be released for sale, and so
ordered soon after he entered the executive office.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
The Inland Waterways Commission.
In his annual Message of December, 1907, the President
enlarged the range of considerations that connect themselves
with the question of economic forestry, by directing attention
to the importance of the waterways of the country and their
claim to a more systematic development. "For the last few
years," he said, "through several agencies, the Government has
been endeavoring to get our people to look ahead, and to
substitute a planned and orderly development of our resources
in place of a haphazard striving for immediate profit. Our
great river systems should be developed as National water
highways; the Mississippi, with its tributaries, standing
first in importance, and the Columbia second, although there
are many others of importance on the Pacific, the Atlantic and
the Gulf slopes. The National Government should undertake this
work, and I hope a beginning will be made in the present
Congress; and the greatest of all our rivers, the Mississippi,
should receive especial attention. From the Great Lakes to the
mouth of the Mississippi there should be a deep waterway, with
deep waterways leading from it to the East and the West. Such
a waterway would practically mean the extension of our coast
line into the very heart of our country. It would be of
incalculable benefit to our people. If begun at once it can be
carried through in time appreciably to relieve the congestion
of our great freight-carrying lines of railroads. …
"The inland waterways which lie just back of the whole eastern
and southern coasts should likewise be developed. Moreover,
the development of our waterways involves many other important
water problems, all of which should be considered as part of
the same general scheme. The Government dams should be used to
produce hundreds of thousands of horsepower as an incident to
improving navigation; for the annual value of the unused
water-power of the United States perhaps exceeds the annual
value of the products of all our mines. As an incident to
creating the deep waterway down the Mississippi, the
Government should build along its whole lower length levees
which taken together with the control of the headwaters, will
at once and forever put a complete stop to all threat of
floods in the immensely fertile Delta region. The territory
lying adjacent to the Mississippi along its lower course will
thereby become one of the most prosperous and populous, as it
already is one of the most fertile, farming regions in all the
world. I have appointed an Inland Waterways Commission to
study and outline a comprehensive scheme of development along
all the lines indicated. Later I shall lay its report before
the Congress."
The Inland Waterways Commission thus appointed by the
President in March, 1907, gave its attention first to the
project of a "Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Water Way," which had
been commanding wide interest in the Mississippi Valley for
some years. What the project, in its full magnitude,
contemplated, was stated as follows in the resolutions of a
great convention, of 4000 delegates, from 44 States, assembled
at Chicago in October, 1908:
"Any plan for the inland waterway development so imperatively
necessary to the material welfare of the valley should
comprise a main trunk line in the form of a strait connecting
Lake Michigan with the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois
and Mississippi rivers.
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The development of this trunk line should begin at once. The
improvement of the branches of this main line, such as the
upper Mississippi, with its tributaries; the Ohio, with its
leading tributaries, including the Tennessee and Cumberland;
the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red, the White, and other
rivers, and the interstate inland waterway of Louisiana and
Texas, should proceed simultaneously with the development of
the principal line.
"The deep waterway is practically complete from Chicago to
Joliet through the courage and enterprise of the single city
of Chicago, which has by the expenditure of $55,000,000
created a deep waterway across the main divide between the
waters of Lake Michigan and those of the Mississippi. A
special board of survey, composed of United States engineers,
reported to Congress in 1905 that the continuation of the deep
waterway from Joliet to St. Louis was feasible and would cost
only $31,000,000. The State of Illinois, assuming that the
Federal Government will take the responsibility of completing
the waterway to the Gulf, is about to cooperate to the extent
of $20,000,000."
The waterway here mentioned as being "practically complete from
Chicago to Joliet" is that known as the Chicago Drainage
Canal. The $20,000,000 with which the State of Illinois would
cooperate in carrying out the whole project was voted by that
State in November, 1908, for building an extension of the
Drainage Canal from Joliet to Utica, Illinois, sixty-one
miles, for a development of water power. The depth of these
channels is and is to be twenty-four feet, and the project of
the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway contemplated that depth
throughout. The Board of Engineers to which the project was
referred reported, however, in June, 1909, against the
desirability of a waterway of such depth. Its cost from St.
Louis to the Gulf is estimated to be $128,000,000 for
construction, and $6,000,000 yearly for maintenance. In the
judgment of the board, the present demands of commerce between
St. Louis and the Gulf will be adequately met by an eight-foot
channel from St. Louis to the mouth of the Ohio and a channel
of not less than nine feet in depth below the mouth of the
Ohio. The board’s belief is that an eight-foot channel from
Chicago to St. Louis corresponding with the eight-foot project
from St. Louis to Cairo is the least that would adequately
meet the demands of commerce. It adds that such a waterway
would be desirable, provided its cost is reasonable. Present
and prospective demands of commerce between Chicago and the
Gulf would be adequately served, the board reports, by a
through nine-foot channel to the Gulf.
In the States bordering on the Atlantic a "Deeper Waterways
Association" is pressing long-mooted plans for uniting the
bays, sounds, and navigable rivers along the Atlantic coast by
canals, thus affording safe deep-water communication from
Boston on the east to Florida at the far south.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
Conference of Governors at Washington.
In all his endeavors to establish a national policy directed,
systematically and scientifically, to the arresting of waste
in the use and treatment of the natural resources of the
country, President Roosevelt was assisted very greatly by the
knowledge and the energetic public spirit of the chief of the
National Forest Service, Mr. Gifford Pinchot. It is understood
to have been on the initiative of Mr. Pinchot that the
crowning expedient for stirring and determining public feeling
on the subject was planned, early in the winter of 1908, when
the President invited the Governors of all the States and
Territories to a Conference in Washington, for considering the
whole question of an economic conservation of natural
resources and concerting measures to that end. It was said,
indeed, by the President, in addressing the meeting of
Governors, that if it had not been for Mr. Pinchot "this
convention neither would nor could have been called." The
invitation went to others than Governors,—to men of national
prominence in public life, in scientific pursuits, in business
experience, and to heads of great associations. The resulting
assembly at the White House, on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of
May, 1908, marked an epoch in American history. There were
Governors from forty of the forty-six States of the Union,
with the President and members of his Cabinet, the Justices of
the Supreme Court, many Senators and Representatives from the
Congress, and a distinguished gathering of such citizens as
William Jennings Bryan, Seth Low, James J. Hill, Andrew
Carnegie, John Mitchell and Samuel Gompers. All sides of the
national thriftlessness that needed correction were discussed
by men who could best describe the evils produced and best
indicate the methods of remedy. Before adjourning their
meeting the Governors present adopted with unanimity a
declaration in which they say:
"We agree that our country’s future is involved in this: that
the great natural resources supply the material basis upon
which our civilization must continue to depend, and upon which
the perpetuity of the nation itself rests. We agree, in the
light of the facts brought to our knowledge and from the
information received from sources which we cannot doubt, that
this material basis is threatened with exhaustion. …
"We declare our firm conviction that this conservation of our
natural resources is a subject of transcendent importance
which should engage unremittingly the attention of the nation,
the States, and the people in earnest cooperation. These
natural resources include the land on which we live and which
yields our food; the living waters which fertilize the soil,
supply power, and form great avenues of commerce; the forests
which yield the materials for our homes, prevent erosion of
the soil, and conserve the navigation and other uses of the
streams; and the minerals which form the basis of our
industrial life, and supply us with heat, light, and power. …
"We commend the wise forethought of the President in sounding
the note of warning as to the waste and exhaustion of the
natural resources of the country, and signify our high
appreciation of his action in calling this Conference to
consider the same and to seek remedies therefor through
cooperation of the nation and the States. …
"We agree in the wisdom of future conferences between the
President, Members of Congress, and the governors of States on
the conservation of our natural resources with a view of
continued coöperation and action on the lines suggested; and
to this end we advise that from time to time, as in his
judgment may seem wise, the President call the governors of
States and Members of Congress and others into conference.
{149}
"We agree that further action is advisable to ascertain the
present condition of our natural resources and to promote the
conservation of the same; and to that end we recommend the
appointment by each State of a commission on the conservation
of natural resources, to coöperate with each other and with
any similar commission of the Federal Government."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
The National Conservation Commission and its Report.
The President acted with promptitude on the suggestion of a
National Commission on the Conservation of Natural Resources,
to coöperate with kindred State Commissions. Within a month he
announced the appointment of such a Commission, composed of
nearly fifty men of special qualification for the inquiries to
be pursued, the recommendations to be made, and the action to
be taken. All sections of the country are represented on the
Commission, including such authorities on waters as Professor
Swain, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; on
forests, as Professor Graves, of the Yale Forestry School, and
Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, of New Jersey; on lands, as
Ex-Governor Pardee, of California, and Mr. James J. Hill, the
eminent railway president; on minerals, as Messrs. Andrew
Carnegie, of New York, John Hays Hammond, of Massachusetts,
and John Mitchell, of Illinois.
The Commission is divided into four sections, one to consider
forests, another waters, a third minerals, and the fourth
lands. Over these divisions is an executive committee, of which
Mr. Gifford Pinchot is chairman. In each section there are
representatives from the Senate and House of Representatives,
and officials of Government from the Department which has to
do with the subject referred to it.
State action on the lines commended by the Conference of
Governors had already been instituted in a number of States,
and in many others it was promptly set on foot; so that the
desired coöperative organization of effort was soon well under
way, and contributing to the first undertaking planned by the
Executive Committee of the National Commission, which was the
making of an inventory of the natural resources of the United
States. So effective was the work done in the summer and fall
of 1908 that a Second Conference of State Governors, jointly
with the State and National Commissions, was found desirable,
for consideration of the mass of facts collected as a basis
for definite plans. The Second Conference, like the First, was
in Washington, and it was opened on the 8th of December, under
the chairmanship of the then President-elect of the United
States, the Honorable William H. Taft. The draft of a report
prepared to be made by the National Conservation Commission to
the President of the United States was submitted
confidentially to this Conference, and was sent to Congress a
little later with its approval, as well as with that of the
President. The Conference adopted, furthermore, two important
resolutions, as follows:
"_Resolved_, That a joint committee be appointed by the
chairman, to consist of six members of state conservation
commissions and three members of the National Conservation
Commission, whose duty it shall be to prepare and present to
the state and national commissions, and through them to the
governors and the President, a plan for united action by all
organizations concerned with the conservation of natural
resources. (On motion of Governor Noel, of Mississippi, the
chairman and secretary of the conference were added to and
constituted a part of this committee.) "
"We also especially urge on the Congress of the United States
the high desirability of maintaining a National Commission on
the Conservation of the Resources of the Country, empowered to
coöperate with State Commissions, to the end that every
sovereign commonwealth and every section of the country may
attain the high degree of prosperity and the sureness of
perpetuity naturally arising in the abundant resources and the
vigor, intelligence and patriotism of our people."
In subsequently communicating to Congress, on the 22d of
January, 1909, the report of the National Conservation
Commission, the President said:
"With the statements and conclusions of this report I heartily
concur, and I commend it to the thoughtful consideration both
of the Congress and of our people generally. It is one of the
most fundamentally important documents ever laid before the
American people. It contains the first inventory of its
natural resources ever made by any nation."
The report of the Commission was prefaced by a brief
explanatory statement from the Chairman of its Executive
Committee, partly as follows:
"The executive committee designated in your letter creating
the commission organized on June 19 and outlined a plan for
making an inventory of the natural resources of the United
States. On July 1 work was undertaken, accordingly, with the
coöperation of the bureaus of the federal departments,
authorities of the different States, and representative bodies
of the national industries. The results of this coöperative
work are herewith submitted as appendices of the commission’s
report. … In its coöperation ‘with other bodies created for
similar purposes by States,’ the National Conservation
Commission has had most valuable assistance. Within the first
month after the creation of the commission, the governors of 5
States had appointed conservation commissions, and an equal
number of organizations of national scope had named
conservation committees. At the time of the recent joint
conservation conference 33 States and Territories had formed
conservation commissions. The number has now increased to 36,
with indications that nearly all of the remaining States will
soon take similar action. The number of national organizations
which have appointed conservation committees is 41."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
An Inventory of Natural Resources.
From the report itself it is only possible, in this place, to
glean a few of its most impressive and significant disclosures
of fact. For example:
CONCERNING FORESTS.
"Forests privately owned cover three-fourths of the total
forest area and contain four-fifths of the standing timber.
The timber privately owned is not only four times that
publicly owned, but is generally more valuable. Forestry is
now practiced on 70 per cent. of the forests publicly owned,
and on less than 1 per cent. of the forests privately owned,
or on only 18 per cent. of the total area of forests.
"The yearly growth of wood in our forests does not average
more than 12 cubic feet per acre. This gives a total yearly
growth of less than 7,000,000,000 cubic feet.
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"We have 200,000,000 acres of mature forests, in which yearly
growth is balanced by decay; 250,000,000 acres partly cut over
or burned over, but restocking naturally with enough young
growth to produce a merchantable crop, and 100,000,000 acres
cut over and burned over, upon which young growth is lacking
or too scanty to make merchantable timber.
"We take from our forests yearly, including waste in logging
and in manufacture, 23,000,000,000 cubic feet of wood. We use
each year 100,000,000 cords of firewood; 40,000,000,000 feet
of lumber; more than 1,000,000,000 posts, poles, and fence
rails; 118,000,000 hewn ties; 1,500,000,000 staves; over
133,000,000 sets of heading; nearly 500,000,000 barrel hoops;
3,000,000 cords of native pulp wood; 165,000,000 cubic feet of
round mine timbers, and 1,250,000 cords of wood for
distillation.
"Since 1870 forest fires have destroyed a yearly average of 50
lives and $50,000,000 worth of timber. Not less than
50,000,000 acres of forest is burned over yearly. The young
growth destroyed by fire is worth far more than the
merchantable timber burned.
"One-fourth of the standing timber is lost in logging. The
boxing of long-leaf pine for turpentine has destroyed
one-fifth of the forests worked. The loss in the mill is from
one-third to two-thirds of the timber sawed. The loss of mill
product in seasoning and fitting for use is from one-seventh
to one fourth. Of each 1000 feet, which stood in the forest,
an average of only 320 feet of lumber is used.
"We take from our forests each year, not counting the loss by
fire, three and a half times their yearly growth. We take 40
cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown; we take 260
cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 and France 25
cubic feet.
"We tax our forests under the general property tax, a method
abandoned long ago by every other great nation. Present tax
laws prevent reforestation of cut-over land and the
perpetuation of existing forests by use.
"Great damage is done to standing timber by injurious forest
insects. Much of this damage can be prevented at small
expense.
"To protect our farms from wind and to reforest land best
suited for forest growth will require tree planting on an area
larger than Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia combined.
Lands so far successfully planted make a total area smaller
than Rhode Island; and year by year, through careless cutting
and fires, we lower the capacity of existing forests to
produce their like again, or else totally destroy them. …
"By reasonable thrift we can produce a constant timber supply
beyond our present need, and with it conserve the usefulness
of our streams for irrigation, water supply, navigation and
power. Under right management, our forests will yield over
four times as much as now. We can reduce waste in the woods
and in the mill at least one third, with present as well as
future profit. … We can practically stop forest fires at a
cost yearly of one fifth of the value of the merchantable
timber burned.
"We shall suffer for timber to meet our needs until our
forests have had time to grow again. But if we act vigorously
and at once, we shall escape permanent timber scarcity." The
report adds much of interest on this subject.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
CONCERNING WATERS.
"Our mean annual rainfall is about 30 inches; the quantity
about 215,000,000,000,000 cubic feet per year, equivalent to
ten Mississippi rivers. Of the total rainfall over half is
evaporated; about a third flows into the sea, the remaining
sixth is either consumed or absorbed. These portions are
sometimes called, respectively, the fly-off, the run-off and
the cut-off. They are partly interchangeable. About a third of
the run-off, or a tenth of the entire rainfall, passes through
the Mississippi. The run-off is increasing with deforestation
and cultivation.
"Of the 70,000,000,000,000 cubic feet annually flowing into
the sea, less than 1 per cent. is restrained and utilized for
municipal and community supply; less than 2 per cent. (or some
10 per cent. of that in the arid and semi-arid regions) is
used for irrigation; perhaps 5 per cent, is used for
navigation, and less than 5 per cent, for power. …
"For irrigation it is estimated that there are $200,000,000
invested in dams, ditches, reservoirs, and other works for the
partial control of the waters; and that 1,500,000,000,000
cubic feet are annually diverted to irrigable lands,
aggregating some 20,000 square miles. Except in some cases
through forestry, few catchment areas are controlled, and few
reservoirs are large enough to hold the storm waters. The
waste in the public and private projects exceeds 60 per cent.
while no more than 25 per cent. of the water actually
available for irrigation of the arid lands is restrained and
diverted.
"There are in continental United States 282 streams navigated
for an aggregate of 26,115 miles, and as much more navigable
if improved. There are 45 canals, aggregating 2,189 miles,
besides numerous abandoned canals. Except through forestry in
recent years, together with a few reservoirs and canal locks
and movable dams, there has been little effort to control
headwaters or catchment areas in the interests of navigation,
and none of our rivers are navigated to more than a small
fraction even of their effective low-water capacity.
"The water power now in use is 5,250,000 horse power; the
amount running over government dams and not used is about
1,400,000 horse-power; the amount reasonably available equals
or exceeds the entire mechanical power now in use, or enough
to operate every mill, drive every spindle, propel every train
and boat, and light every city, town, and village in the
country. … Nearly all the freshet and flood water runs to
waste, and the low waters which limit the efficiency of power
plants are increasing in frequency and duration with the
increasing flood run-off. … The direct yearly damage by floods
since 1900 has increased steadily from $45,000,000 to over
$238,000,000. …
"A large part of that half of the annual rainfall not
evaporated lodges temporarily in the soil and earth. It is
estimated that the ground water to the depth of 100 feet
averages 16 2/3 percent, of the earth-Volume, or over
1,400,000,000,000,000 cubic feet, equivalent to seven years'
rainfall or twenty years’ run-off. This subsurface reservoir
is the essential basis of agriculture and other industries and
is the chief natural resource of the country. It sustains
forests and all other crops and supplies the perennial springs
and streams and wells used by four-fifths of our population
and nearly all our domestic animals. Its quantity is
diminished by the increased run-off due to deforestation and
injudicious farming."
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CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
CONCERNING LANDS.
"The total land area of continental United States is
1,900,000,000 acres. Of this but little more than two-fifths
is in farms, and less than one-half of the farm area is
improved and made a source of crop production. We have nearly
6,000,000 farms; they average 146 acres each. The value of the
farms is nearly one-fourth the wealth of the United States.
There are more than 300,000,000 acres of public grazing land.
The number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits is more
than 10,000,000. …
"There has been a slight increase in the average yield of our
great staple farm products, but neither the increase in
acreage nor the yield per acre has kept pace with our increase
in population. Within a century we shall probably have to feed
three times as many people as now; and the main bulk of our
food supply must be grown on our own soil.
"The area of cultivated land may possibly be doubled. In
addition to the land awaiting the plow, 75,000,000 acres of
swamp land can be reclaimed, 40,000,000 acres of desert land
irrigated, and millions of acres of brush and wooded land
cleared. Our population will increase continuously, but there
is a definite limit to the increase of our cultivated acreage.
Hence we must greatly increase the yield per acre. The average
yield of wheat in the United States is less than 14 bushels
per acre, in Germany 28 bushels, and in England 32 bushels. We
get 30 bushels of oats per acre, England nearly 45, and
Germany more than 47. Our soils are fertile, but our mode of
farming neither conserves the soil nor secures full crop
returns. The greatest unnecessary loss of our soil is
preventable erosion. Second only to this is the waste, nonuse,
and misuse of fertilizer derived from animals and men."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
CONCERNING MINERALS.
"The available and easily accessible supplies of coal in the
United States aggregate approximately 1,400,000,000,000 tons.
At the present increasing rate of production this supply will
be so depleted as to approach exhaustion before the middle of
the next century.
"The known supply of high-grade iron ores in the United States
approximates 3,840,000,000 tons, which at the present
increasing rate of consumption can not be expected to last
beyond the middle of the present century. In addition to this,
there are assumed to be 59,000,000,000 tons of lower grade
iron ores which are not available for use under existing
conditions.
"The supply of stone, clay, cement, lime, sand, and salt is
ample, while the stock of the precious metals and of copper,
lead, zinc, sulphur, asphalt, graphite, quicksilver, mica, and
the rare metals can not well be estimated, but is clearly
exhaustible within one to three centuries unless unexpected
deposits be found.
"The known supply of petroleum is estimated at 15,000,000,000
to 20,000,000,000 barrels, distributed through six separate
fields having an aggregate area of 8,900 square miles. The
production is rapidly increasing, while the wastes and the
loss through misuse are enormous. The supply can not be
expected to last beyond the middle of the present century.
"The known natural-gas fields aggregate an area of 9,000
square miles, distributed through 22 States. Of the total
yield from these fields during 1907, 400,000,000,000 cubic
feet, valued at $62,000,000, were utilized, while an equal
quantity was allowed to escape into the air. The daily waste
of natural gas—the most perfect known fuel—is over
1,000,000,000 cubic feet, or enough to supply every city in
the United States of over 100,000 population.
"Phosphate rock, used for fertilizer, represents the slow
accumulation of organic matter during past ages. In most
countries it is scrupulously preserved; in this country it is
extensively exported, and largely for this reason its
production is increasing rapidly. The original supply can not
long withstand the increasing demand. …
"The National Government should exercise such control of the
mineral fuels and phosphate rocks now in its possession as to
check waste and prolong our supply."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
CONCERNING LIFE AND HEALTH
"Since the greatest of our national assets is the health and
vigor of the American people, our efficiency must depend on
national vitality even more than on the resources of the
minerals, lands, forests, and waters. …
"Our annual mortality from tuberculosis is about 150,000.
Stopping three-fourths of the loss of life from this cause,
and from typhoid and other prevalent and preventable diseases,
would increase our average length of life over fifteen years.
There are constantly about 3,000,000 persons seriously ill in
the United States, of whom 500,000 are consumptives. More than
half this illness is preventable. …
"The National Government has now several agencies exercising
health functions which only need to be concentrated to become
coordinated parts of a greater health service worthy of the
nation."
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
FINAL WORDS.
"The inventory of our natural resources made by your
commission, with the vigorous aid of all federal agencies
concerned, of many States, and of a great number of associated
and individual cooperators, furnishes a safe basis for general
conclusions as to what we have, what we use and waste, and
what may be the possible saving. But for none of the great
resources of the farm, the mine, the forest, and the stream do
we yet possess knowledge definite or wide enough to insure
methods of use which will best conserve them. … The pressing
need is for a general plan under which citizens, States and
Nation may unite in an effort to achieve this great end. The
lack of cooperation between the States and the Nation, and
between the agencies of the National Government, is a potent
cause of the neglect of conservation among the people. An
organization through which all agencies, state, national,
municipal, associate, and individual, may unite in a common
effort to conserve the foundations of our prosperity is
indispensable to the welfare and progress of the nation. To
that end the immediate creation of a national agency is
essential."
{152}
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
Beginnings of a General Organization of all
Conservation Agencies.
The Joint Committee which the Chairman of the Second
Conference of Governors was instructed to appoint, for the
preparation of "a plan for united action by all organizations
concerned with the conservation of natural resources," met at
Washington on the 5th of March, 1909, for its first
consultation. The Committee, of eleven members, consists of
six chairmen of State Conservation Commissions, and five who
are members of the National Conservation Commission. In
preparation for the meeting the various conservation bodies
which have been actively at work for several months are
sending in suggestions based on their own experience.
Action for the preservation and increase of forests has been
stimulated in many if not all of the States of the Union by
the national agitation of the subject in these late years.
Nowhere has the influence been more effective than in New
York, which has not only greatly enlarged its control and
improved its care and treatment of the extensive forest tracts
in the Adirondack region, but has done even more important
reforesting work in other parts of its territory. "James S.
Whipple, forest, fish and game commissioner, has not only
planted more trees in this State than have been planted in any
other State, or even by the national government, but this year
he has made another great advance in the reforesting movement.
The commission has sold to private land owners at cost
1,034,050 pine and spruce trees for reforesting land within
the State."
_New York Evening Post,
April 24, 1909._
These trees went to every county of the State, in numbers
ranging from 50 to 200,000.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
Threatened Monopoly of Water Power.
See (in this Volume)
Combinations, Industrial, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
Withdrawal of Water Power Sites from Land Office Entry.
What is said to be the largest number of acres of land
withdrawn for temporary water power sites in the history of
the Interior Department was made August 13, 1909, when Acting
Secretary Wilson withdrew 87,360 acres along the Colorado
River, in Utah. The land in question was withdrawn to prevent
"monopolies," and with a view to procure legislation from
Congress to preserve them to the Government.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
The National Conservation Association.
"Great significance," said a Press despatch from Washington,
September 16, 1906, "is attached here to-day to the
announcement from Chicago of the formation of the National
Conservation Association, with Charles W. Eliot, ex-president
of Harvard University, as president. Friends of conservation
interpret the launching of the new organization to mean that a
national organization of the widest possible membership and
the greatest possible scope is to supplant the American
Forestry Association in administration favor as the
educational branch of the conservation movement."
Not long after its formation the Association issued an earnest
appeal to the country to bring the pressure of its opinion on
Congress for needed legislation. The special subject of this
appeal was the vast coal field in Alaska, which can only be
saved from monopoly by speedy amendment of existing laws. "We,
therefore," said the Association, "appeal to the American
people to bring the urgent needs of the situation to the
attention of their representatives in Congress, in order that
comprehensive legislation upon this vital matter may be
enacted at the next session of Congress. To this end, every
individual citizen is urged to do his part, and to act at
once."
On the request of Dr. Eliot, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, after the
withdrawal of the latter from the office of Chief Forester of
the United States, was made President of the Association, in
January, 1910, but Dr. Eliot was named Honorary President.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES:
Legislation recommended by President Taft.
Earnestly upholding the Conservation policy instituted by his
predecessor, President Taft, in a Special Message to Congress,
January 14, 1910, recommended several measures of legislation,
for which suggested bills had been drafted by the Secretary of
the Interior.
"One of the most pressing needs," said the Message, "in the
matter of public-land reform is that lands should be
classified according to their principal value or use. …
"It is now proposed to dispose of agricultural lands as such,
and at the same time to reserve for other disposition the
treasure of coal, oil, asphaltum, natural gas, and phosphate
contained therein. This may be best accomplished by separating
the right to mine from the title to the surface, giving the
necessary use of so much of the latter as may be required for
the extraction of the deposits. The surface might be disposed
of as agricultural land under the general agricultural
statutes, while the coal or other mineral could be disposed of
by lease on a royalty basis."
The importance of an enlargement of the undertakings of the
Government in the line of irrigation works, for reclaiming
arid lands, is urged by the President with great force, and he
recommends "that authority be given to issue not exceeding
$30,000,000 of bonds from time to time, as the secretary of
the interior shall find it necessary, the proceeds to be
applied to the completion of the projects already begun and
their proper extension, and the bonds running ten years or
more to be taken up by the proceeds of returns to the
reclamation fund, which returns, as the years go on, will
increase rapidly in amount."
The Message gives approval to a Bill which passed the lower
House of the late Congress, directing that "the national
government appropriate a certain amount each year out of the
receipts from the forestry business of the government to
institute reforestation at the sources of certain navigable
streams to be selected by the Geological Survey with a view to
determining the practicability of thus improving and
protecting the streams for Federal purposes."
Finally, on the subject of waterway improvement, the Message
recommends the project of dams in the Ohio River from
Pittsburg to Cairo, and in the Upper Mississippi from St. Paul
to St. Louis.
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: A. D. 1910.
Removal from office of Chief Forester Pinchot.
Investigation of charges against Secretary Ballinger.
Unfortunate differences between the Secretary of the Interior,
Mr. Ballinger, and the head of the Bureau of Forestry, Mr.
Pinchot, led to the removal of the latter from office early in
January, 1910. As a further result, formal charges of
unfaithfulness to public interests, in conducting national
measures of conservation, were brought against Secretary
Ballinger, and are undergoing investigation by a Congressional
Committee at the time of the passing of this matter to the
printers (March, 1910).
----------CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: End--------
{153}
CONSERVATIVE-UNIONIST PARTY:
Surrender of the Government in Great Britain.
Defeat in the Elections.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
CONSPIRACY LAW, British, as affecting Trades Unions.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND A. D. 1906 (MARCH).
CONSTABULARY, The Philippine.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1901.
Loss of political importance.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: THE ASIATIC FUTURE.
CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1908-1909.
The Turkish Revolution.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
CONSTITUTION OF AUSTRALIA:
Proposed Amendments.
See (in this Volume)
AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 and 1910.
CONSTITUTION OF BRITISH INDIAN GOVERNMENT:
The Indian Councils Act.
See (in this Volume )
INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
CONSTITUTION FOR CHINA:
Nine years of approach to it.
Promised for 1907.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908, 1908 (December),
and 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND:
Resolution of the Commons contemplating a change affecting
the Legislative Power of the House of Lords.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1906 (APRIL-DECEMBER), and 1910.
CONSTITUTION OF GEORGIA:
Suffrage Amendment.
See (in this Volume)
GEORGIA: A. D. 1908.
CONSTITUTION OF MONTENEGRO.
See (in this Volume)
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
CONSTITUTION OF OKLAHOMA.
Some of the more radical features of the Constitution under
which Oklahoma was admitted to the American Union are
summarized in the following:
"Legislative authority is vested in a legislature, but the
people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and
amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject the same
at the polls independent of the legislature, and also reserve
power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls
any act of the legislature.
"Eight per cent of the legal voters have the right to propose
any legislative measure and 15 percent of the legal voters
have the right to propose amendments to the constitution by
petition. A referendum may be ordered, except as to laws
necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace,
health or safety, either by petition signed by 5 per cent of
the legal voters or by the legislature as other bills are
enacted. The veto power of the governor does not extend to
measures voted on by the people. The powers of the initiative
and referendum are also reserved to the legal voters of every
county and district as to local legislation or action.
"Every railroad, car or express company is required to receive
and transport without delay or discrimination each other’s
cars, loaded or empty, and passengers under such regulations
as shall be prescribed by law or any commission created for
that purpose. All oil-pipe companies are made subject to the
reasonable control and regulation of the corporation
commission, to which telephone and telegraph lines are also
subject in the same manner. No public-service corporation may
consolidate with any other like corporation having under its
control a parallel or competing line except by enactment of
the legislature upon the recommendation of the corporation
commission. The legislature, however, shall never enact any
law permitting any public-service corporation to consolidate
with any other public-service corporation organized under the
laws of any other state or of the United States owning or
controlling a parallel or competing line in the state. The
giving of passes by railroad or transportation companies is
forbidden except in the case of employés and other specified
persons.
"A corporation commission is created, to be composed of three
persons, elected by the people for terms of six years. The
commission shall have power to supervise and control all
transportation and transmission companies in the state in all
matters relating to the performance of their public duties and
their charges therefor and of correcting abuses and preventing
unjust discrimination and extortion by such companies; and to
that end the commission shall from time to time prescribe and
enforce such rates, charges, classification of charges and
rules and regulations and shall require the companies to
establish and maintain until amended all such public service,
facilities and conveniences as may be reasonable and just.
"Railroads, other than street or electric roads, are forbidden
to charge more than 2 cents a mile for the transportation of
passengers. The corporation commission may, however exempt
those roads which submit proof that they cannot earn a just
compensation for the services rendered by them to the public
if not permitted to charge more than 2 cents a mile.
"No corporation may issue stock except for money, labor done
or property actually received to the amount of the par value
thereof and all fictitious increase of stock or indebtedness
shall be void.
"No corporation doing business in the state may be permitted
to influence elections or official duty by contributions of
money or anything of value.
"Every license issued or charter granted to a mining or public
service corporation, foreign or domestic, must contain a
stipulation that such corporation will submit any difference
it may have with employés in reference to labor to
arbitration.
"The selling by firms or corporations of commodities at a
lower rate in one locality than in another for the purpose of
creating a monopoly or for destroying competition is
prohibited.
"Municipal corporations may not be created by special but by
general laws, and every corporation now existing shall
continue with its present rights and powers until otherwise
provided by law. The powers of the initiative and referendum
are reserved to the people of every municipal corporation. No
municipal corporation may ever grant, extend or renew a
franchise without the approval of a majority of the qualified
electors residing within its limits, and no franchise may be
granted, extended or renewed for more than twenty-five years.
Women are qualified to vote at school-district elections only.
{154}
----------CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA: Start--------
A Constitution for Persia was signed by the Shah,
Muzaffer-ed-Deen, December 30, 1906, of which the following
is, in part, the text:
In the name of God the all Merciful! Whereas by our Firman of
the 5th August, 1906, we commanded the constitution of a
National Assembly [Medjliss] for the progress and welfare of
the State and nation, the strengthening of the foundations of
the kingdom, and the carrying out of the laws of Islam; and
whereas, in accordance with the clause by which it is provided
that, as each individual member of the State has a right to
take part in the superintendence and decision of public
affairs, we therefore have permitted the election and
appointment of Deputies on behalf of the nation; and whereas
the National Assembly has been opened through our gracious
benevolence, we have decreed the following Articles of
constitutional Regulations for the National Assembly,
including the duties and business of the Assembly and its
limitations and relations toward Government Departments:
THE INSTITUTION OF THE ASSEMBLY.
[Articles 1-14 declare the National Assembly to be "composed
of members elected at Tehran and in the provinces"; their
place of meeting to be at Tehran; their number 160, but may if
necessary be increased to 200; their term of service two
years: they are "representative of the whole Persian nation";
the Tehran deputies to have "the option of instituting the
Assembly and starting discussion and debates," and "their
decisions by majority during the absence of the provincial
deputies will be valid and are to be carried out." The
Assembly itself is given the right to fix the time of its
recess and its sitting; its members cannot be proceeded
against by any person; its proceedings must be public and open
to newspaper reporting, but false reporting shall be
punished.]
THE DUTIES OF THE ASSEMBLY, ITS LIMITATIONS AND RIGHTS.
Article 15.
The National Assembly has the right to discuss truthfully and
sincerely all matters it considers to be desirable in the
interests of the State and nation to investigate; and, subject
to the approval of a majority, to submit them, in the
enjoyment of the utmost safety and confidence, with the
approval of the Senate, to His Imperial Majesty the Shah,
through the first person of the Government, for His Majesty’s
signature, and to be then put into execution.