The experience of recent travellers, and particularly of Livingstone and Stanley, had demonstrated the truth of what had hitherto always been disbelieved, viz., that it was possible for the white man to live and maintain his health in Central Africa. This fact alone was of vast importance; but when was added to it proof that the country was fertile, with immense natural sources of wealth, needing only the brain and hand of civilised man to tap them, a prosperous future for the country was assured. England, France, and Portugal, but notably England, had already claimed large sections of Africa for their own, and Italy and Germany—especially Germany—were feverishly anxious to follow suit. But it is doubtful if among all the students of the African problem—and they numbered among them the ablest of every nation—there was at this period another man with prescience to foresee, as we now know King Leopold must have foreseen, the illimitable possibilities of Central Africa. Indeed it is tolerably certain that had the great nations realised the potential value of this region, their cupidity would never have permitted them to allow its sovereignty to become vested in any single individual with claim to it based upon anything except irresistible material force. King Leopold’s claim, as we have already partly seen, and as will presently be fully demonstrated, had for its foundation a long-cherished and active philanthropic interest in the welfare of its natives, chiefly in the form of the suppression of slavery; the expenditure, out of his Majesty’s private purse, of large sums of money for exploration, establishment of route stations, etc.; and generally for calling the attention of the civilised world to a little-known and less-cared-for region commonly thought to be worthless.
The Congo at Lokandu.
Bacon asserts, in his Advancement of Learning, that “States are great engines moving slowly,” and from the beginning of the world until long past the English philosopher’s time, the axiom was true; but we of the twentieth century inhabit a world as unlike the world that Bacon lived in as modern New York is unlike the city that Washington Irving described under that name. The teeming millions of Europe are ever more and more perplexed by the problem of how to live, and not a day passes but the cruel competition of life waxes fiercer and hotter. New lands, new markets, must be found—the social pressure in the older nations demands it as a prime necessity. Therefore comes it that States are no longer “engines moving slowly.” On the contrary, they move very rapidly; and as all the fat lands of the earth have already been appropriated, future trouble seems not improbable. John Bull, early in the field, worked hard painting the map red, and now it is not possible to get far away from one or other of his frontiers. The British colossus has many imitators; but these started in the game late, when most of the prizes had been won.
Universal Land Hunger.
No sooner was it perceived that the Congo region of Central Africa is a valuable possession, than France set up her flag on the Congo, at Brazzaville. The Portuguese, rummaging in their musty archives for traces of their past glory, set up a claim to the Congo River because one of her navigators had discovered the mouth of it five hundred years ago. Germany, too, now exhibited her desire for huge territories in East Africa, and did not betray any marked scrupulousness as to whose rights were invaded in obtaining them. With such neighbours pressing closely upon him, it was no more than natural that King Leopold should cast about him how best he might preserve inviolate the great country to which he had so lavishly devoted his time and money; and he finally conceived the idea of a Congo Free State, with himself as its Sovereign ruler. Without some such clear recognition of Congo territory, and of his own personal rights in respect of it, it was abundantly clear that the first would be filched and the second ignored. For King Leopold to proclaim himself Sovereign ruler of the Congo region was, of course, not sufficient. It would be necessary to secure the assent to that course of all the great Powers interested.
It was a momentous time. While the French were establishing themselves on Stanley Pool, Stanley the man was working in the interests of King Leopold, travelling through the Congo country, buying land here and there, establishing stations, and making treaties in the King’s name with native chiefs.
The French regarded Stanley’s proceedings with jealous distrust, and in France the question was raised whether the International Association for the Exploration and Civilisation of Central Africa ought to be permitted to exercise sovereign rights. That history furnished examples of corporate bodies exercising sovereign authority was acknowledged, but there was a large party in France which insistently asserted that no such right pertained to the International Association.
The situation was very complicated. If King Leopold recognised the preposterous claim of Portugal over the mouth of the Congo River, the entire region in which he was interested would be without a free way to the sea, a fatal bar to its proper development.
To deal with Portugal in this matter, even supposing her alleged right to be well founded, would have presented no insuperable difficulty; poor nations like poor individuals being ever open to sell their commodities at something more than their market value. But just at this juncture an unexpected act on the part of Great Britain added enormously to the difficulty. Lord Granville, at that time British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, after having refused to recognise any right by Portugal over the mouth of the Congo, in return for concessions granted by Portugal to Britain elsewhere, now recognised those claims in an extended form.