A. Benedetti.
The telegram to which Mr. Benedetti alludes was addressed to Mr. Morel from Paris, and was to call his attention to an article in the Tribuna favourable to the Congo, and to ask him for arguments in answer to this article for publication in an Italian paper. Mr. Morel replied that he had not had time to get the Tribuna article translated.
This edifying incident needs no comment. When the denial of its genuineness, or a qualification of its meaning and purpose, comes, it is understood that the Congo Administration will publish a facsimile of Mr. Morel’s contract with Mr. Benedetti, bearing his signature and the signature of Mr. John Holt, merchant-philanthropist, Vice-President of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, etc., in order that intelligent people may form their own conclusions upon it at first hand.
Mr. Morel writes to the London Times of December 19, 1904, defending the part he has played in this Benedetti incident. “You persist,” says Mr. Morel (addressing M. Roland de Marès), “to make readers believe that I proposed to pay M. Benedetti for false testimony, whereas my rôle was limited to giving him the opportunity he asked for (that is to say, to come to Europe and to publish under his own name, in the interests of truth and of his fellow-countrymen), by defraying the expenses of his journey and the positive pecuniary losses which his action would involve, and by participating in the printing expenses of his pamphlet.”
FOOTNOTES:
[44] The following letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Congo Reform Association, Liverpool, on December 8, 1904, by the editor of the Catholic Herald (London), indicates that certain British journals are sincerely seeking to expose the truth concerning the Congo and the motives underlying the campaign against the Free State in England. The writer of the letter is the publisher of the thirty-odd leading Catholic papers in the United Kingdom. As a Member of Parliament, and as an editor, his attitude towards public questions has always been conscientious and fearless.
“Sir,—The following matters so intimately concern your veracity, and, therefore, deeply concern the public, in connection with your anti-Congo campaign and your Congo Reform Society, that I draw your attention to the fact that this letter will be printed in full in the Catholic Herald of next week, and will also be sent out broadcast to the newspapers of this country, so that you may have a full opportunity of defending yourself from the most serious charges made therein.
“On the 24th of November last, in defending an abusive attack made by the London Daily News on the Belgian people, in which it referred to them as ‘barbarians,’ you made a statement to the effect that fifteen Congo officials were then in prison at Boma for the grossest outrages upon natives, and that ten more were awaiting their trial.
“In reply to a communication sent to a member of the Belgian House of Representatives, a statement is made by the Belgian authorities, that only two officials are in prison in Boma. This statement was forwarded to the Daily News, which has lent itself to the disgraceful and lying campaign against the Congo, but, although the editor has been several times requested to publish it, he has up till now declined to do so.
“I, therefore, draw your attention to this emphatic contradiction of your story, and, having every confidence in the honesty and truthfulness of the statement made by responsible gentlemen in Brussels, state that your assertion can only be treated as a gross invention, quite on a par with the other methods of your anti-Congo campaign.