The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

FOOTNOTES:

[35] In the French Congo there is only one small launch devoted to missionary work.

CHAPTER XXVIII
STATE LANDS AND CONCESSIONS

The State’s Heavy Task.

It would seem reasonable that practical colonial government should begin the pursuit of its objects by a policy so flexible that it might readily conform to the altering conditions upon which it operates. The exceptional nature of the task imposed upon the Government of the Congo Free State, its varied and numerous difficulties, and the uncertainty of the radical principles imposed upon it, left its administrators no choice of colonial precedent to follow, no governmental model to adopt. It stood alone, in a unique enterprise not devoid of new hazards, pitfalls, and strange terrors. It had been regarded at first as an adventure, then as a serious experiment. A civil community was to be created of savage hordes; to maintain itself by its own people led on to civilisation by a few Europeans with a courage and zeal the equatorial sun should not subdue. The vast field it occupied and the untamed characteristics of its large population, the early philanthropic aims of its royal patron, and a general desire to carry out the principles enunciated at the Berlin Conference, all contributed to invest the Congo State Government with a special character, and to saddle it with original duties supposedly beyond its powers to perform. Thus, in the midst of an unexplored and barbarous land, with everything before it unknown, with all behind it seemingly unsuited for employment here, ways and means and a state system of government had to be adopted not only for internal regulation and development, but also to maintain the integrity of its relations with the rival Powers which surrounded it. The natural problems of the sovereignty of an unknown land and savage people were difficult enough; but when these had been intensified and their practical solution hindered by the fine theories and high ideals of the Berlin Conference, there appeared reason for the belief that a West African Don Quixote had been charged to assault a windmill. Colonial traditions appeared to the men on the spot to be inapplicable to the Congo. There was no tax-burdened home government to rely upon for support. Nor were the African forests or the palaces and mansions of Europe crowded with philanthropists desirous of dedicating their fortunes to the welfare of the Bantu race in the distant Congo. In popular parlance, the King and his Congo were left to subsist on fine sentiments and a jug of water. If in these circumstances a colonial policy of self-support was adopted and carried out with an economic skill which in its results excites foreign envy and covetousness to-day, it should not be attributed to wrong motive, but to that of stern necessity. Concerning this formative period of early Congolese policy the recent exposition of Baron Descamps may be aptly quoted:

The problem had to be solved without bringing into conflict certain elements which are difficult to assimilate, namely, the exigencies of commercial freedom as recognised by the conventions, the civilisation of the natives and their material and moral improvement, the exigencies of the life and progress of the State itself considered as the organic principle of the new political society, and finally the exigencies or rather conditions relating to the personal union of the Free State with Belgium.

In the accomplishment of this complex task, the State was first inspired with the principle of a scrupulous respect for international engagements. This principle was never lost sight of, even at the critical periods of its life following on the Berlin Conference, when a régime of complete exemption from import duties weighed heavily upon its economic existence.

The State was also filled with the determination to faithfully respect the declaration of permanent neutrality which it made a short time after the Berlin Conference. As we have remarked elsewhere, this was an honourable action towards the Powers who were thus reassured concerning the policy and pacific autonomy of the new State. It was also an act of prudence which protected the Congo State from the solicitations of other States interested in influencing its political life.[36]

Children of the Settlement School at Boma Praying.

The State’s Policy.

The policy of the new State was to be “fruitful activity” in peace and order as soon as the Arab wars had ceased and the slave trade had been superseded by an agricultural and industrial régime. With a neutralised State this seemed to be a permanent function commendable alike to its people, its Government, and its international associates and sponsors. Whether we regard the moral concomitant of an era of fruitful activity or only the material essentials of a community so employed, the bald reality called for men and money for its accomplishment. Of white men there were few in a region where a tropical sun, and other climatic disadvantages, counted heavily against their labour. The Negro alone appeared to thrive in conditions more suited to his physical characteristics. The problem of creating a State of the Negro population involved social and material questions of vast import to those who had undertaken to develop and govern this unknown and savage land. Should the Negro be taught the nobility of labour—informed of the glorious edifices to civilisation it had reared and what benefits its pursuit would shower upon him if he would but follow the white man’s precept and example in the sphere of honest toil?

The trade in black men had been suppressed by the courageous white men of Belgium. Trade in the material resources of the country was now but a phenomenon of the law of self-preservation and the principle of self-support. It is in the adoption of practical measures to develop that trade for the greatest good of the greatest number that the Belgians have shown an executive skill which gives the character of indolent farce to the droning administration of certain other African colonies, particularly British Lagos, which derives sixty-five per cent. of its supporting revenue from traffic in alcoholic liquor,[37] as compared with five per cent. derived from the same source by the Congo Free State.

If the Government of the Congo Free State had to deal with a white population capable of co-operation as independent political units in the State’s development, it may easily be conceived that measures perhaps more in consonance with certain European theories might have been devised. The candour of this suggestion in no wise detracts from the fitness and happy efficacy of the measures by which the Government of the Congo State has achieved one of the greatest colonising successes of modern times.

It is the co-operative principle—so utterly lacking in the uncivilised native Congolese—which often inspires those governmental speculations in new countries whereby it is sought to solve the problem of sustaining the State upon its own undeveloped resources. There can be little doubt that this principle, now well recognised in the industrial world and constantly adopted and expanded in the United States and Great Britain by enlightened labour leaders and great corporations, unconsciously influenced the Belgian statesmen who framed the land and taxation laws of the Congo Free State. The civilisation of Central Africa was, and forsooth, still is, an immense task, and the State’s early attitude of welcoming quasi private enterprise to co-operate with it in the development of lands which indolent native races had ravaged—first for their own immediate wants, later at the behest of adventurers and despoiling traders, whose coin was alcohol and shoddy tinsel—was not only justified in a Government seeking rational progress, but it followed the soundest principles of what the higher socialism terms community of interest. If more modern in theory, the Congo State has in practice often followed the most experienced of old-world colonisers—the Dutch and the British. Where practicable under like conditions “it imitates these experienced colonisers, without, however, following them blindly” or attaining at once what it has taken them several generations to accomplish. “Neither does it persist in methods which have been recognised as erroneous, but it alters and corrects them where possible.” Being like all governments, old or new, in savage lands or civilised, unable to reform its domestic policies at command, it seeks the betterment of its system with that gradation of movement which shall not disorganise and disrupt the structure of its statehood. Those who avowedly speak for the Congo Free State say that “its policy is essentially a work of methodical experiment and practical adaptation. Even when colonial science is more advanced than it is to-day, that policy will retain its raison d’être and its merits.”

Having considered those early causes which evolved a State land policy largely founded on the principles of co-operation and self-support, it is pertinent, at this point, to examine the theory of the State land system which has met with the criticism of commercial interests in Great Britain.

The State’s Land System.

The origin of the land system of the Congo Free State may be said to have assumed legal form by the official order of Sir Francis de Winton, who, it will be recalled, was appointed Governor-General of the State when Henry M. Stanley returned to Europe. The order is dated Vivi, July 1, 1885.

A Decree of the Sovereign will presently request all non-natives who now possess, by any right whatever, land situated within the territory of the Congo Free State, to make an official declaration, describing the land in question, and submitting their titles to be examined and approved by the Government. The object of the said Decree will be to secure, in the prescribed form, the acknowledgment of acquired rights, and to make the regular organisation of land property in the said State possible in the near future.

In the meantime, with a view to avoiding disputes and abuses, the Governor-General, duly authorised by the Sovereign, orders as follows:

Article 1. Dating from the publication of the present proclamation, no contract or agreement with the natives for the occupation of portions of the land will be acknowledged or protected by the Government, unless the said contract or agreement has been made in the presence of a public official, commissioned by the Governor-General, and according to the rules laid down by him in each particular case.

Article 2. No one has right to occupy without title any vacant land, nor to dispossess the natives from their land; all vacant land must be considered as belonging to the State.

State Protects Lands of Natives.

This order provided for the official recognition of title to land appropriated by foreigners before July 1, 1885; land occupied up to the same date by natives, and land which, having been neither occupied by natives nor appropriated by foreigners, was declared to be the property of the State. Particular emphasis was given to the clause protecting the native in his occupation of land whereon his industry had created improvement, where he lived in the peaceful pursuits common to his tribe.

Mission of the White Fathers, Tanganyika.

As the appropriation by the State of vacant lands in the Congo has inspired many of the specious arguments which have lately emanated from England alone and more particularly from the claque of the Congo Reform Association in Liverpool, it may be opportune to consider first what the Belgians have said in justification of a course which every student of political history knows has been followed by all civilised States.

In his essay, New Africa, Baron Descamps briefly analyses the theory of the State’s unquestionable property in all vacant lands within its territory:

Territory is that part of the globe over which a State exercises its sovereign rights; it is the material basis of sovereign influence.

The mere fact of the acquisition of a political sovereignty over a certain territory does not in itself confer on the Sovereign—at least according to modern law—the ownership of all property over which private individuals have acquired rights. But the recognition of these same rights, the fixing of just titles of acquisition, the regulation of the legal system relating to property and especially of the condition of vacant land, all that constitutes an essential attribute of sovereignty, in conformity with the necessities of public order and the general welfare of society.

As a sovereign and independent State, the Congo State has been, and continues to be, invested with that prerogative.

In appropriating vacant and ownerless land, the State has made lawful use of an indisputable and perfectly legal right, sanctioned by international custom and acknowledged by the law of nations.

When regularly in possession of vacant land, is it expedient for the State to appropriate certain portions for public uses; to transfer other portions gratuitously or for a consideration, with full rights of ownership or with the right of using them only, to private individuals; to preserve other parts for revenue purposes, by means either of direct administration or of tenure, with a view to employing the revenue according to the needs or convenience of the State? That is a question of internal administration which may be discussed theoretically, as we have already observed, but which must be left, in practice, to the sovereign decision of the State.

Early European Settlers.

Before the Congo State was founded, a few European traders and missionaries in the Lower Congo were occupying certain undefined lands under agreements—more or less precarious in term and effect—with native chiefs. These occupations partook largely of the temporary nature of the native occupations on the banks of the river. As these occupations ceased and the land was abandoned, it reverted to the State, precisely as it reverts, under certain conditions, in other States and colonies throughout the world.

That the Congo State dealt equitably with foreigners who had seriously squatted upon lands in the basin, is plainly indicated in its next decree, dated 22 August, 1885:

Considering that it is necessary to take steps to recognise the rights of non-natives who acquired property situated in the Congo Free State before the publication of the present Decree:

On proposal of Our Council of General Administrators,
We have decreed and do decree as follows:

Article 1. Non-natives who have rights to substantiate on land situated in the Congo Free State, may have them registered by presenting a request for registration in the form prescribed by the following regulations:

This request must be presented in duplicate, before April 1, 1886, to the public officer, who will have to record the deeds of land.

Our Governor-General has the power to authorise the admission, after this date, of demands for registration, which for some exceptional reason could not be presented within the prescribed time.

---

Article 8. The manner in which requests for registration will be controlled shall be settled by Our Governor-General.

When a non-native shall have duly proved his rights over a portion of land, the Recorder of Deeds shall give him a registration certificate which shall constitute a legal title of occupation until such time as the land system has been definitely settled in the Congo Free State.

Under this decree, practically every land claim presented was admitted by the Government. Further decrees provided for the compulsory measurement of land held by private owners; the Torrens Act system of transferring the title to land was adopted; rules of survey and its certification were prescribed; deeds were registered at the office of a Registrar, and generally the complete and practical machinery of an efficient Land Department was established for the benefit of natives and foreigners alike. As the State progressed in its organisation it defined its earlier improvisations with greater precision, provided laws in regulation of native “occupations,” private lands and the lands of the State. Its respect for the equities in property of those who had hazarded life in that wild region extended also to a scrupulous care for the native whose lands it guarded from invasion and trespass. By decree dated September 14, 1886, the State provided that “Lands occupied by native populations under the authority of their chiefs shall continue to be governed by local customs and uses,” thus insuring aboriginal tranquillity in the presence of a scheme of civilisation which the administrators of the State wisely refrained from imposing with disturbing rigour. The savage black man at first instinctively shrinks from the civilised white, and the Belgians, with knowledge of this almost universal timidity of the African races, offered him a mild measure of civilising rule as distinguished from the bluff and peremptory subjugation which has always characterised the decimating colonial methods of its burly neighbour in the Uganda and Soudan countries. By the same decree the Government of the Congo State provided that:

All acts or agreements which might tend to expel the natives from the territories occupied by them or to deprive them directly or indirectly of their freedom or means of subsistence, are forbidden.

Where natives occupy, or have moved upon, lands which it is sought to lease from the State, provision has been made by the decree of April 9, 1893, that:

When native villages are enclosed in the land acquired or let, the natives may, as long as the official measurements have not been made, carry on agricultural pursuits without the consent of landlord or tenant, on the vacant lands surrounding their villages.

All disputes which may arise in the matter between the natives and the grantee or tenant, shall be finally settled by the Governor-General or his delegate.

A decree of February 2, 1898, appointed a Land Commission charged to consider whether certain lands, as to which claims may have been made, “shall be reserved either on grounds of public utility or with a view of promoting their cultivation by the natives.” Reference has already been made to the bounty paid by the State to natives who cultivate coffee and cocoa plants. Even in the mining laws of the Congo the State has continued its solicitude for the native and decreed that he shall not be disturbed in the pursuit of those rude industries which tend to elevate his moral nature and provide him with means of self-support. By a decree dated June 8, 1888, the native is exempted from the prohibition, under a previous decree (July 1, 1885), of working a mine without a concession from the State. Under this exemption natives are expressly authorized to “continue to work mines for their own account on lands occupied by them.” Indeed in all cases where local tribal customs do not directly conflict with civilising tendencies, the rule of the State has been to observe them in all their integrity. To facilitate this policy in its intercourse with natives, the State has dealt with the aboriginal population largely through the chiefs of the native tribes. This means of linking the black man to the State which is striving to civilise him by the gradual substitution of the white man’s methods for those of the savage, has been attended with much success and inspired confidence where instinctive distrust might have long prevailed. Amongst the local customs which are safeguarded by the State are what are known as coutumes de rations, a form of royalty to which the natives are entitled on the produce of certain land. So far has the State concerned itself in perpetuating this form of support to the tribes where the custom prevails that, by an order of the Governor-General dated November 8, 1886, it has provided that:

The issue of registration certificates does not exempt the interested parties from observing, in their dealings with the natives, existing local customs, especially those relative to royalties known as coutumes de rations, although these royalties may not be mentioned in the certificates, among the encumbrances affecting the property.

If, in consequence of the non-payment of the rations or coutumes, usual in such cases, disputes occur between the landed proprietor and the natives, the certificate of registration may be cancelled by the Courts on the application of the curator of land titles.

The Mission, Moanda.

From the foregoing and many similar decrees intended to secure the property and other rights of the natives, it will be observed that the administrators of the State consistently undertook to carry out all that was implied in King Leopold’s early declaration of his aims in Central Africa. If in the execution of the Congo State laws there has sometimes been laxity, error, and perhaps individual cases of perversion, the fact remains that the law is sound and the land system in respect of native possessions an equitable scheme devised in the interest of their general welfare and protection. The administration of the Congo Free State should be judged with due regard to the nature of its savage population, its unexplored territory of a million square miles, its early lack of organised governmental forces, the necessary newness and the rudeness of its civil institutions, and the thousand and one uncatalogued difficulties which must have beset such ambitious pioneers as that little band of Belgians which dared venture into an abyss from the safe walls of which Europe smiled derisively and shouted orders to the men below.

State Claims Vacant Lands.

Having provided laws securing to natives the lands occupied by them, and regulated the land titles of foreigners, the State declared as its own all unoccupied lands not subject to the ownership of the native or the foreigner. This governmental possession of unoccupied territory is not only sanctioned by the most enlightened laws of the age, it is the express duty of a State to bring under its care all territory which, if abandoned, might become the object of dispute, internecine strife, and sanguinary warfare. The very element of, and respect for, ownership of lands, chattels, or other objects of material value, preserves that order which all law seeks to enforce, for which civil society is organised on foundations of equity and justice. Was it not the very principle which actuated the Berlin Conference when, in order to remove the Congo Free State from the covetous rivalry of the Powers—their disputes and possible wars—it recognised the occupants of the Congo Basin and neutralised the Congo State? If, during the twenty years that have elapsed since the Berlin Conference settled the matter, the Congo Free State had remained in the position of territory open to the pre-emption, adverse possession, invasion, and trespass of anybody, the savage European war of words, of diplomatic missiles, or perhaps of actual arms, would have been a deadly substitute for the native savagery of the African black. Civilisation without property vested in the State or its citizens is inconceivable.

Various Tenures of Land.

The categories into which the lands within the borders of the Congo Free State naturally fall have already been briefly indicated in a previous chapter. The land system includes, first, a reservation of land exclusively for the use of the public. Second, lands sold upon an official scale of prices through a Land Department composed of five members. Third, concessions of land granted for a certain term of years, or as freehold, to companies organised to develop its productivity. Fourth, grants of use extended to those who, by arrangement with the State, thereby obtain the right to work a prescribed area for india-rubber. Certain zones of rubber-bearing territory are not subject to grants of use, the State reserving therein the exclusive right to work the forests, thereby following the system in force in the Soudan and in other neighbouring colonies. Finally, there are leases of three, six, or nine years, of land for commercial purposes, and leases for twenty to fifty years of lands for agricultural uses and the establishment of missions, schools, and churches. The latter possess areas aggregating about six thousand acres.

The principal concessionary companies, operate over approximately one-fourth of the State. The lands conceded to such companies are transmitted under contracts very similar to those employed in the Soudan,[38] and provide for the improvement of the land by the erection of buildings, planting rubber vines, coffee, cocoa, breeding cattle, and collecting rubber in a manner which will not deplete the growing stock. The Congo State law imposes upon the rubber companies the duty of planting at least five hundred feet of rubber vines or trees for every ton of rubber harvested. The forests are safeguarded in respect of wood and other products, and special inspectors see to the rigorous enforcement of the law. There appears to be a different state of things in the rubber-bearing districts of British Lagos, where reckless destruction of the vines, waste, inattention, and lack of intelligent organisation have reduced the rubber yield in 1900 to one-tenth its harvest in 1896, with the decline still continuing. The same measure of rapid decline is going on in the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone. “The decrease in the export of rubber from £347,721 in 1896 to £160,315 in 1899 is clearly due to the reckless and unskilful manner in which rubber was collected.”[39]

This report is corroborated by the statistics of the British Gold Coast, which in 1899 exported rubber to the value of £555,731, but in 1902 to the value of only £88,602; Lagos, 1896, £347,721, in 1901, £14,749; Sierra Leone, 1895, £86,940, in 1902, £8,192. Indeed, the table from which these quotations are made shows that the rubber exports from eight British colonies have greatly decreased since 1898, despite the increased European value of that product. It would seem that the care and skill which during these same years caused the Congo exports to rise from less than a million francs in 1886 to over fifty-four millions in 1903 were at least worth the emulation of the Gold Coast, Lagos, and Sierra Leone muddlers hiding defeat behind the humanitarian pretexts of Liverpool rubber merchants and their agents, whose conscience is as flexible as their trade product.

Concerning the concessionary scheme which prevails in the French Congo, and which the Congo Free State Government has so successfully carried out in its own territory, M. Eugène Etienne, a distinguished French scholar, Vice-President of the French Chamber of Deputies, and leader of the French colonial group, has said and written some pertinent things. The French Congo, lying on the coast west of the Free State, has been also assailed by the few interested British merchants and their religious and secular agents and reform associations for having been forbidden to trespass upon and despoil Central African territory which has so far escaped the acquisitive proclivities of John Bull. M. Etienne’s dissertation contains the following passages as applicable to the Free State as to the French Congo:

French and Belgian Systems Compared.

I stop in the enumeration of the results obtained by the Independent State of the Congo, and I will not put in the opposite column the balance sheet which gives little enough to rejoice over of the progress realised in the neighbouring French colony. Certainly from the point of view of the exploration of the country, and the management of the natives, our officials have obtained what might be called, in a formula borrowed from mechanics, the maximum of result with the minimum of expense....

The constitution of landed property in the Congo, regulated by the decree of 28th March, 1899, and the attribution of vacant lands by important lots to companies bound by a cahier des charges, form a work carefully thought out and elaborated on the advice of eminent jurists. It does honour to the Minister of the Colonies who took the initiative in the matter, my eminent colleague in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Guillain, as well as to the Councillor of State, M. Cotelle, who gave his active collaboration as President of the Commission of Concessions.

Concessions Justified.

The justification of the large concessions is to substitute a regular and methodical exploitation of the products of the soil for the system of trading which destroys the natural riches, leaving behind it only the exhausted and mutilated bush. Is it a question of the collection of caoutchouc [rubber],—the native cuts the lianas, bleeds the producing shrub to complete exhaustion. Is it a question of ivory,—the precious product disappears rapidly with the increase of the price, and the easier destruction of the elephants by means of arms of precision. Left to himself the native destroys, and does not concern himself to ask the earth to restore what he has taken from it. At the most he scratches a little of the soil round the villages he inhabits in order to carry out thereon some cultivation of food stuffs. Thus has it already been recorded in our Congo colony that the caoutchouc lianas have nearly disappeared from the coast, and from the banks of the rivers. It would be the same in the end in the regions further removed from the sea, if wise regulations did not put a stop to it.

Quite different would be the value of the soil if new plantations replaced those exhausted by successive harvests, and added new products to those which come without cultivation. Coffee trees and cocoa trees succeed admirably on the Congo. The soil lends itself to all tropical cultivations. As to the collection of caoutchouc, which will long remain one of the principal resources of the country, it demands management and care. It is for this motive that, according to one of the clauses of the cahier des charges annexed to the decrees of concession, the concessionaire companies are bound “to plant and to maintain to the termination of the concession, by replacing those which shall have disappeared, at least 500 feet of caoutchouc plants per ton of caoutchouc produced.”

The contract signed between the State as the proprietor of vacant lands and the concessionaire is the following: The concessionaire is authorised to establish himself on the lands assigned to him, he exercises there for a period of 30 years all rights of possession and exploitation (under reservation of lands allotted to the natives, and of rights of proprietorship previously acquired by third parties); but this lease of 30 years is to be changed into definite proprietorship for all lands which shall have been improved. How is it to be decided whether the lands may be considered as improved? The cahier des charges answers this question with precision. Shall be considered as improved:

1. Lands occupied over at least one-tenth of their surface by buildings;

2. Lands planted over at least one-twentieth of their surface with rich cultivation such as cocoa, coffee, caoutchouc, vanilla, indigo, tobacco, etc.;

3. Lands cultivated over at least one-tenth of their surface with food cultivation such as rice, millet, manioc, etc.;

4. The pasturage on which shall be maintained during at least five years beasts for breeding and fattening at the rate of two heads of large beasts or four heads of small beasts per 10 hectares[40];

5. The parts of forests of a superficies of at least 100 hectares of a single tenancy in which caoutchouc shall have been regularly collected for at least five years at the rate of at least 20 feet of trees or lianas as the average per hectare....

In exchange for these advantages the concessionaire assumes charges which are not defined with less rigour: Fixed annual rents to be paid to the colony, share of the profits, 15 per cent. of the company’s receipts going to the local budget, obligation to float on the watercourses traversing the concession steamboats of a fixed model, all without prejudice to the payment of a security....

The British merchants[41] complained of being deprived of the rights which they had exercised during many years of sending their contractors to collect the caoutchouc on the lands conceded to the new companies, a dispossession for which they demanded reparation. The Court, after having ascertained that the English firms did not claim any permanent establishment on the domain conceded, non-suited them, objecting with reason that the State as proprietor of free lands in the Congo had the right to dispose of them, and that the long tolerance which the merchants had enjoyed for the collection of the products of the soil could not constitute an acquired right in their favour. Beaten in the French courts, the Liverpool firms lodged an appeal before a tribunal where they were certain of being heard. They set in movement the English Chambers of Commerce, interested the press and public opinion in their cause, and made the British Foreign Office intervene.

I have always admired the ardour and solicitude with which British diplomacy takes part and cause for the grievances of British subjects abroad. The British citizen, as formerly the Roman, is assured of being protected and defended. I know citizens of other countries who cannot always say as much. The complaints of the Liverpool merchants furnished in their way a fine platform for diplomacy. The Congo with the guarantees stipulated by the Berlin Conference, should it not be the chosen land, the last refuge of commercial freedom? To the complaints of merchants established in the French colony were added those of the English merchants and consuls resident in the Belgian Congo. It was the placing on trial of the Independent State in its entirety—of its commercial policy, of its native policy, which formed the subject of inquiry in the press and before the British Parliament....

Now in no country of the world has freedom of commerce been considered as interfering with the rights of property. The proprietor of the soil alone has the right to dispose of the products of the land which belongs to him. Do people in England think that freedom of commerce is violated because the first passer-by of a rich and extensive manorial domain cannot take the fruits and vegetables, kill the bucks and the hinds, and lay the axe to the trees? Why should it be otherwise on the Congo? The whole question is, whether the State, which in the French Congo (as in the Independent State) has proclaimed itself the proprietor of vacant and unowned lands, has this right legitimately. If it has, it can in one form or another alienate the lands belonging to it. That this exercise of the law of property may inconvenience those who formerly enjoyed the products of the soil, I do not deny. There are countries where hunting is not forbidden, and the game belongs to the killer. A day arrives when the proprietor reserves his rights. He forbids hunting, he institutes suits. It is very disagreeable for those who used to traverse his land freely. But it does not follow that they have the right to an indemnity. Still that is the strange suit that England wishes to bring before the European Areopagus. The Congo has protected its hunting grounds; the poachers exclaim against the injustice and claim damages![42]

Missionary Necropolis, Luluabourg.

British Concessions in Canada.

Crown Lands in British Colonies.

Has the State been right in considering itself the legitimate proprietor of vacant and unowned lands in the Congo? If any doubt existed on the subject, the luminous opinion given to our concessionaires by Maître Henri Barboux should suffice to remove it. After having recalled that in all countries, at all periods, the exercise of the right of sovereignty implied the appropriation for the profit of the State of conquered lands, the eminent advocate shows how England has made use of that prerogative; in Lower Canada where a single Governor granted 1,425,000 acres to sixty persons; in Upper Canada where in 1825 out of 17,000,000 measured acres, an extent almost equal to Ireland, 15,000,000 had been given in concession; in Australia where the distribution of lands to colonists in gratuitous concessions or by sale was never considered “as in contempt of the rights of the primitive inhabitants of the country, nor as contrary to the largest principles of commercial freedom.” In India, Ceylon, at Hong-Kong, in Africa (Cape Colony, Natal, Bechuanaland), in the Fiji Islands, Great Britain has always admitted that “the whole country falls to the Crown, and that the Crown can attribute to individuals portions of the country, while reserving as its own domain all which is not given in concession” (Creasy, The Imperial and Colonial Constitutions of the Britannic Empire, p. 66). Holland applies the same rules. In Germany the Imperial ordinance of 26th November, 1895, ordains in these terms: “Under reserve of the rights of property or other real rights that individuals or juridical persons, native chiefs or communities, can invoke, as well as of the rights of occupation of third persons resulting from contracts passed with the Imperial Government, all the land of German East Africa is vacant land of the Crown. The proprietorship of it belongs to the Empire.”

These very same principles have been applied by the European nations which have shared amongst themselves the Conventional Basin of the Congo. The reservation of the rights acquired by third persons, the reservation of the rights of natives are stipulated for in our contracts of concession with a precision which leaves nothing to be desired. “The society having the concession cannot exercise the rights of enjoyment and exploitation which are accorded to it except outside villages occupied by natives, and the lands reserved to them for purposes of cultivation, pasturage, or as forest. The perimeters of these lands if it is a question of natives with a fixed residence, or the successive perimeters to be occupied or reserved if it is one of natives with a changeable residence, shall be fixed by the decisions of the Governor of the Colony, who shall equally determine the lands over which the natives shall preserve the rights of hunting and fishing. The lands and rights thus reserved shall not be ceded by the natives either to the concessionaire or to third parties except with the authority of the Governor of the Colony.” (Art. 10 of the decree of 28th March, 1879, on concessions.) These stipulations are the most liberal that could be carried out in a country where native proprietorship is not regularly constituted, where the land surrounding the villages is alone cultivated, where the villages are shifted about with extreme ease, what was field or plantation one year returning to the state of the bush in the following. As to lands really occupied by Europeans, they have always been left outside the new concessions. What it has not been thought proper to respect is the pretension which some traders have put forward of being masters of what they never possessed, of trading in what did not belong to them....

Up to the present I have spoken only of the concessions given on French territory. The Independent State has employed the same system. In a part of its territory it even inaugurated it. All that may be said to defend our administration from having violated on the Congo the principle of commercial liberty is, then, applicable to the Belgian concessions.

Grievances of Traders.

The Private Domain (Domaine Privé) of the Congo Free State embraces approximately one-fourth of the unoccupied lands within its borders. This is the feature of the State’s general scheme of physical development which excites its enemies to make many foolhardy assaults and become voluble with fallacy and hollow argument. It was created by a decree dated December 5, 1892. All the net revenue derived from the Private Domain is placed in the State’s treasury and applied to the payment of the cost of its public improvements and all its undertakings seeking to improve the condition of the native population, the facilities for their civilisation and the elevation of their moral nature.

The revenue from the Private Domain is derived from the State’s direct exploitation of its lands. Rubber and ivory are its chief products at the present time. Various kinds of wood abound in its forests, and cocoa and coffee plantations, experimental farms, live-stock ranches, agricultural areas, all are being developed under the direct supervision of State agents.

The question which is periodically enlivened concerning this governmental scheme for acquiring necessary revenue is: Can the State, in occupation of its own lands in the Congo Basin, develop the land by direct cultivation, or en régie (by trustees), for the benefit of the State budget, which, in its integrity, is devoted to increase the power of the State to civilise and elevate its native people? There can be no doubt about the State’s right to develop territory which for lack of private initiative and capital would produce nothing for the benefit of the society for which the State has been created. This right has been recognised not only by the Powers at the Berlin Conference in reference to Central Africa, but, in varying aspects, by all civilised countries in reference to other parts of the globe. Belgian, French, English, Russian, Swiss, and Italian jurists have considered this question at great length. The opinions of Messrs. Van Berchem, Van Maldeghem, de Paepe, John Westlake, K.C., Sir Horace Davey, K.C., de Martens, Barboux, Nys, Pierantoni, and Azcarate, besides the weight of opinion expressed by United States authorities which have been consulted, all concede the State’s right to develop its territory for the benefit of a treasury devoted to the welfare of its people. Moreover, this scheme of self-development is not peculiar to the Free State. France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal declared unoccupied land to be the property of the State. The establishment of that principle at once implies the adoption of that other by which the State may improve its own property and turn it from a wilderness into a productive garden. In addition to innumerable earlier decrees by the Governments surrounding the Congo Free State, many of which are set out in the Bulletin Officiel of the Independent State of the Congo for June, 1903, new ordinances, amplifying and extending the early decrees, have been recently (September 20 and October 23, 1904) put into operation. Their inclusion herein would unduly extend the text of this volume. A brief indication of their provisions will be found in the Appendix under the title: Features of the Land System in the African Colonies of Germany, Great Britain, France, and Portugal.[43]

From the Neue Hamburgische Börsen Halle, 20 October, 1904, we quote the following comment upon the German decree of the same date, inasmuch as it reveals what, in general, is the European opinion of the British criticism of the Congo State land system:

The decree brings under the designation of forest products the products from all woodlands, whether fenced in or not, and even from isolated plantations, from bush and underbrush, bamboo and elm trees, and from all liquaceous plants, especially the lumber, the bark, the sap, the rubber, the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit. In such part of the territories as have, after effective occupation, been declared forest reservations by a public notice of the government, it is strictly forbidden to gather any kind of forest products, for such harvesting is made an exclusive right of the Treasury.

That decree is interesting in many ways. First, it shows that the German Colonial Office has decided to systematically protect the forest domain of the Colony in order to prevent indiscriminate deforestation, which would rapidly bring disaster upon the country. But it also reminds one of the violent onslaught made by some English people, and especially by the Liverpool rubber dealers, against the Congo Free State.

What England unceasingly argues against the Belgian Congo—for the humanitarian movement is only a pretext—namely, the exploitation by the Government of such parts of the territory as are not private property of individuals, is actually made a rule by the [German] decree just referred to. A previous decree of the Government has still more closely indicated what parts of the territory are assigned to the Treasury as forest reservations. Added to the other Treasury lands of various description they cover more than nine-tenths of the Colony.

The conclusion is that in German East Africa, as well as in the Congo Free State, the rubber harvest, in which the Liverpool merchants take such lively interest, is gathered from crown-lands only, and practically constitutes a State monopoly.

Now, a large part of German East Africa comes under the provisions of the Berlin Act. And, in order to show the extent to which British hypocrisy will go, it is enough to recall that for years, both in British East Africa and in Uganda, which also partly come under the scope of the Berlin Act, the same government rules have been enforced, declaring india-rubber a State monopoly not only on the crown-lands, but even on private estates.

What is lawful for one party must be lawful for the other, and we cannot reproach the Congo Free State for upholding against British would-be interference such rights of the Crown as other governments maintain in their own colonies.

This example of vigorous Teutonic candour might be repeated from the columns of many other European journals, but the desire to avoid passing from the historical to the controversial in the present work must limit the use of abundant similar material.

To show that the direct exploitation of domanial forests is made a legitimate source of revenue in Eastern countries, the instance of Japan may be cited. That brave little country, so heroically engaged in fighting for the unmolested right to pursue its brilliant course of modern progress, directly cultivates and harvests for the benefit of its treasury a State domain equal to seven times the entire area of Belgium!

When the ministers of his Majesty, King Leopold, were requested to indicate the principles upon which the Domaine Privé of the Congo Free State was developed, they stated that, having in view the necessity for revenue from the soil, the civilising influence of labour, and the social, physical, and moral condition of the African black, they had devised that scheme which would attract the only existing available labour in the country, the co-operation of the native, for which co-operation the State not only paid him, but provided him with liberating and enlightening opportunities for participating in the growth of African civilisation. In its official reports the Government of the Congo Free State refers to its aims in this respect:

The object which the Government aims at, is to succeed in turning the private domain of the State to profit, exclusively by means of voluntary contributions [of labour] from the natives, and inducing them to work through the allurement of an earned and adequate payment. The rate must be sufficiently remunerative to stimulate in the natives the desire of obtaining it, and, as a consequence, to induce them to gather in the products of the domain.

Where the attraction of commercial benefit is not sufficient to assure the working of the private domain, it is necessary to resort to the tax in kind; but, even in this case, the work is remunerated in the same manner as the voluntary contributions. The Government’s orders in this respect are positive. Properly speaking, the tax in kind is not a real tax, since the local value of the products brought in by the natives is given to them in exchange.

The Government has never neglected an opportunity to remind its agents, intrusted with the collection of taxes in kind, that their part is that of an educator: their mission is to impress on the mind of the natives the taste for work; and the means available would fail of their aim if compulsion was changed into violence.

What is called the Domain of the Crown is a limited territory defined by decrees dated March 8, 1896, and December 23, 1901, lying in the basins of Lake Leopold II. and of the Lukenie River, in the basin of the Busira-Momboya River, and between certain boundaries at the confluence of the Lubefu and Sankuru rivers, to the western summit-line of the Lukenie basin, and including certain contiguous areas. These lands include six discovered mines which have so far not been worked. The Domain of the Crown is a corporate body administered by a committee of three persons appointed by the Sovereign.

The forests of the Congo are the finest in the world. They contain a great variety of hard and soft wood, fruit-bearing trees, rubber trees and vines, and gum trees, and constitute an industrial wealth which is being preserved by enforcing rigorous laws. A decree dated July 7, 1898, and orders dated November 22, 1898, and March 21, 1902, regulate timber cutting. Under these, steamboats may take on supplies of wood fuel on payment of an annual tax measured according to their tonnage and speed.

Franciscan Sisters at the Mission of St. Gabriel of the Falls (Oriental Province).

The mining laws of the State are embodied in the decrees of June 8, 1888, and March 20, 1893. They provide, amongst other things, that the purchase of land from the State or from individuals does not “confer the right of working the mineral riches beneath the surface”; that “mineral riches remain the property of the State”; that “no person can work a mine except by virtue of a special concession from the State”; that “the Government fixes by decree the regions where mining researches are authorised either in favour of all persons without distinction, or of the persons specified in the decrees.” A licence fee of 2500 francs and other fees are imposed upon those who, having discovered mineral-bearing properties, desire to work them. A mining concession is limited to an area not exceeding 24,000 acres. Article 4 of the decree of March 25, 1893, provides that:

Whoever shall discover a mine in the regions where he is authorised to make researches in conformity with Article 3, can obtain a right of preference for ten years for the concession of this mine, on condition that he complies with the regulations laid down in the present Decree.

All mining concessions are limited to a term of ninety-nine years. On its expiration the State succeeds to the property as it stands. A system of royalties on the product of the mine is stipulated in all concessions. Such royalties shall not be less than one dollar a year on each 2.47 acres. These fixed annual charges may be commuted by arrangement with the State.

In commenting upon the criticism which British merchants and their allies have uttered against the entire land system of the Congo Free State, an eminent Belgian closely identified with those who support the Congolese policy has said:

It is an easy matter to point out, in an undertaking such as the Congolese enterprise, the inherent imperfections and difficulties of the task, and the accidental defects in the instruments which the State is called upon to employ.

It is, however, very unfair to hide under a bushel the good results which have been obtained, and the progress which has been realised, and to expose on a pinnacle a few exceptional and regrettable facts, to draw a conclusion from particular cases to the detriment of the general rule, and to condemn wholesale an institution which draws forth the admiration even of its enemies, and of which a witness, certainly to be little suspected, has been able to say: “In the whole history of Colonial life, there is no example on record of such a result obtained in such a short period of time.”

We are far from overlooking the important rôle which criticism plays in a matter which is as yet so little advanced as the art and science of colonisation, but in order to play this rôle properly, the critic must remain impartial.

After all, if these severe criticisms have been at times formulated, there are ample compensations in many authoritative comments from abroad. For instance, M. de Lanessan, formerly Minister of the Admiralty in France, says:

“Belgium has shown that, in matters of colonisation, she possesses more practical and rational ideas than ourselves, and a better understanding of the methods of modern colonisation.”

As to the condition of the natives, this is the opinion of Sir Harry Johnston, speaking from experience of that part of the Congo which was formerly the most backward:

“This portion of the Congo Free State was inhabited by cheerful natives who repeatedly, and without solicitation on my part, compared the good times they were now having, to the misery and terror which preceded them when the Arabs and Manyema had established themselves in the country as chiefs and slave-traders.”

As this volume is going to press, advices are to hand that M. Gaston Doumergue, the French Minister for the Colonies, submitted to the President of the Republic of France—and on October 23, 1904, procured his signature to—a decree consolidating the Republic’s legislation concerning French West Africa. This decree reaffirms that “all vacant lands in the colonies of French West Africa are the property of the State”; that the property of the State may be alienated, leased, or developed according to the methods employed in the Free State; that concessions may be granted; that property held in common by tribes under their chiefs may not be sold by them without the State’s consent, etc. In short, the success of the land régime practised by the Congo Free State having convinced the Germans and the French of its wisdom, both countries have now conformed their own laws to it.