“Q. ‘How do you know it was the white men themselves who ordered these cruel things to be done to you? These things must have been done without the white man’s knowledge by the black soldiers.’
“A. (P P): ‘The white men told their soldiers: “You kill only women; you cannot kill men. You must prove that you kill men.” So then the soldiers when they killed us’ (here he stopped and hesitated, and then pointing to the private parts of my bulldog—it was lying asleep at my feet), he said: ‘then they cut off those things and took them to the white men, who said: “It is true, you have killed men.”’
“Q. ‘You mean to tell me that any white man ordered your bodies to be mutilated like that, and those parts of you carried to him?’
“P P, O O, and all (shouting): ‘Yes! many white men. D E did it.’
“Q. ‘You say this is true? Were many of you so treated after being shot?’
“All (shouting out): ‘Nkoto! Nkoto!’ (Very many! Very many!)
“There was no doubt that these people were not inventing. Their vehemence, their flashing eyes, their excitement, was not simulated. Doubtless they exaggerated the numbers, but they were clearly telling what they knew and loathed. I was told that they often became so furious at the recollection of what had been done to them that they lost control over themselves. One of the men before me was getting into this state now.”
Such is the story—or a very small portion of it—which His Majesty’s Consul conveyed to His Majesty’s Government as to the condition of those natives, who, “in the name of Almighty God,” we had pledged ourselves to defend!
The same damning White Book contained a brief account of Lord Cromer’s experience upon the Upper Nile in the Lado district. He notes that for eighty miles the side of the river which is British territory was crowded with native villages, the inhabitants of which ran along the bank calling to the steamer. The other bank (Congolese territory), was a deserted wilderness. The “Tuquoque” argument which King Leopold’s henchmen are so fond of advancing will find it hard to reconcile the difference. Lord Cromer ends his report:
“It appears to me that the facts which I have stated above afford amply sufficient evidence of the spirit which animates the Belgian Administration, if, indeed, Administration it can be called. The Government, so far as I could judge, is conducted almost exclusively on commercial principles, and, even judged by that standard, it would appear that those principles are somewhat short-sighted.”