The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

A Strange Alliance.

Protestant missionaries of various sects, in rivalry with each other, but often alike in being envious of the superior results obtained by Roman Catholic missionaries in the Congo Free State, denounce the Congo Government as a gang of barbarous extortioners, oppressors, murderers. A small but active set of Liverpool merchants, dismayed at finding that what twenty years ago they regarded as worthless has, under judicious Belgian administration, become a valuable asset, and some of whom appear willing to resort to any means by which they may at least be enabled to share the prize, join their forces to those of the missionaries. Lies fall as thickly as leaves in Vallombrosa. No sooner is one mendacious story refuted than ten others take its place. The Congo campaign multiplies its adherents, it gathers force daily, its voice becomes more and more thunderous, until at last it invades the British House of Commons and moves a British minister to write a puerile dispatch to the Great Powers, which the Great Powers, in the exercise of their common-sense, politely ignore. Only up to a certain point does Baron Münchausen triumph. Verb. sap.

Why is John Bull Silent?

What magnificent material for the mouthings of certain English ultra-humanitarians would be the lynching of Negroes in our own Southern States! The jail-breakings, the hangings, shootings, and burnings—could more effective subjects for stereopticon slides and the perfervid oratory of paid lecturers be devised? And all true and ready to hand, needing neither lies nor distortions! Alas! nothing can be made out of that campaign. It will not pay to call our country to account for its neglect or failure to suppress these things. The United States own a fleet which, if not as strong as it should be, is sufficiently powerful to inspire respect; and our President can at any time call up an army of a million citizen soldiers, volunteers of proved valour. With the Congo Free State this is not the case. Caution was ever a prominent characteristic of John Bull, and he has carefully noted that fact. Neutral little Belgium may safely be bullied, her King libelled, and his enterprise misrepresented and held up to the scorn of an undiscriminating world, too busy to undertake a careful analysis of motives or even to distinguish between the true and the false.

Judicial consideration of the English campaign against the Congo, naturally a difficult task, is rendered doubly so by the general suppression of material evidence favourable to that State. From motives best known to their proprietors, one or two important London newspapers, ever ready to afford space for an attack upon the Congo Government, however violent or by whomsoever made, frequently decline to publish replies thereto. Indeed, the more complete the refutation, and the greater the authority of the writer, the less chance of its acceptance for publication in these newspapers. Upon several occasions has Major Harrison been refused space for his temperate letters to the Morning Post, and the Daily News, the principal support of the Aborigines Protection Society, is avowedly against the continued existence of the Congo Free State. A complete answer to Mr. Roger Casement’s Report, prepared by the Congo Government, was unanimously rejected by London editors. This most unjust partisanship extends even to English press reports of proceedings in the House of Commons, of which one might reasonably expect to find in English journals a complete record; or where the exigencies of space necessitate condensation, that at least that editorial operation should be performed without bias. That expectation meets with disappointment.

On June 9, 1904, Sir Charles Dilke, with a fine show of virtue which has not always characterised his conduct, delivered a speech in the House of Commons wherein he assumes the truth of the various libels upon the Congo Government prepared by missionaries, merchants, and dismissed employees. That speech, and the speeches of such other members of the British House of Commons as for various reasons have been induced to follow a similar course, have been reported in extenso, while the speech of Mr. John Campbell, member for South Armagh, has not so much as been referred to. Mr. Campbell derided the Congophobes’ plea that they have at heart only the interests of humanity.

The gold [he remarked] of that fine phrase is alloyed with other arguments. Commercial considerations have also their weight. Some speakers began by talking of humanity and ended with commerce. Others began with commerce and ended with humanity. One honourable member had thrown overboard the humanitarian theme and flatly talked business. But, in spite of all the ornamental flowers of philanthropy, the groundwork of all these speeches is—commerce. The true motive which prompts the Anti-Congo campaign, conducted with such vigour in this country and within these walls, was exposed in a few words by Stanley when he said: “The sentiment that inspires the charges against the Congo is jealousy. The Congo is succeeding better than any other State in Africa.”

One would suppose that sentiments such as these, supported by the authority of Stanley, would at least be as worthy of a few lines in an English newspaper as the vague charges of cruelty alleged by some missionaries based upon what they have been told that somebody else has heard, etc. But, no! such references are rigidly suppressed in a large section of the English press, just as much of Mr. Casement’s Report that is favourable to the Congo Government has been suppressed.[44]

Interior of Cathedral, Baudouinville (Tanganyika).