The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

THE following valuable testimony is extracted from an interesting volume written by this gentleman, entitled The Native Problem in South Africa:

The Congo atrocities campaign is fed upon just a sufficient substratum of truth to make it plausible. But the public in their administered sentimentality travel very wide of the true case. After a full career of blood-curdling horrors unhesitatingly placed at the door of the administration in highest authority irrespective of conditions of environment or personal responsibility, a Sir Harry Johnston, accepted authority, in plenitude of personal knowledge and experience presents a rock of fact which checks the wave of misrepresentation.

In the Congo Free State in addition to the superior council to advise the King in Belgium, the Governor General has the assistance of a similar nominated body at Boma. Local conditions here do not admit at present of following the French system, but it is guided largely in its deliberations by the reports and advice of the district commissioners who with the co-operation of the local chiefs and their own officials form really limited autonomous administrations.

Turning to the Congo Free State the general division of the territory, from an administrative point of view, is based on the districts at the head of each of which is a district commissioner representing the State. The commissioner is assisted by sub-commissioners, but is alone responsible for the good order of his district. Their principal instructions, on which the State lays great stress, are to maintain friendly relations with the natives and wherever possible to prevent or patch up intertribal disputes; they are also charged with abolishing as far as possible barbarous customs and especially human sacrifices and cannibalism, still practised over a large extent of the territory.... In close co-operation with the district commissioner is the native chief or chiefs of the district. The institution and recognition of these are encouraged by the State in order to improve the relations between it and the natives, to consolidate authority over individuals, to ameliorate their condition, and to facilitate their regular contribution to the development of the country. The chiefs have, as a rule, to be first recognised as such by native custom, and are then officially recognised by the Government, and receive a certificate to that effect. They are allowed to exercise their usual authority according to native usage and custom, provided the same be not contrary to public order and is in accordance with the laws of the State. They are held personally responsible for their tribe’s supply of public labour as notified to them annually. The acknowledged native chiefs number 258.

The safeguards provided by the co-operation of the chiefs, and the supervision of the central authority are now on the Congo supplemented, as far as human action under such conditions can go, by a very thorough organisation of the judicial side of the Government. It has pleased many of the critical theorists who have attacked the Congo Free State to say that this latter has been established merely as a blind to the actions of the administration. It may be merely remarked that no infant struggling State is likely to go to the great expense of such an elaborate and widely organised system of justice as has now been called into existence on the Congo pour rire, and furthermore that jurists of the character of those now serving on the Congo are not those capable of lending themselves to such practices. A certain amount of latitude must of course be made for the different conditions in individual countries, especially when in a state of savagery, but generally speaking the Congo tribunals do their duty as well as similar ones in British colonies.

The Sovereign and Government of the Congo Free State have stated over and over again that they desire justice to be rendered impartially, and that as it is necessary that offences committed by natives should not remain unpunished, so penal laws must also be applied to the whites who are guilty of illegal doings. The mere fact of having constituted a superior court of appeal with judges of different nationalities and of appointing foreign lawyers and magistrates as judges and officials of the lower courts in the interior of the country is a proof, and a more than evident guarantee, of the impartiality and seriousness of the judicial administration aimed at. The writer holds no brief for the Congo Free State; rather the contrary in fact, but in common fairness after a very lengthy study of its judicial machinery, laws, and decrees, and the instructions given to its officials, he finds it difficult to conceive what more King Leopold could have done to safeguard its internal affairs than has now been done—given the peculiar conditions of the country. The abuses which have from time to time arisen in the past have been due, as far as one acquainted with similar conditions in West Africa can see, to three things, viz.: (1) to the abuse of power by agents of the concessionaire companies before the State had fully realised the necessity of keeping a sharp control over these semi-independent individuals; (2) to the want of experience of early officials; and (3) to the lack of trained colonial servants whose known antecedents and constitutions fitted them for isolated and arduous responsibility in an unhealthy, tropical, and savage country. It is only right to add, however, that though isolated misdeeds may still continue to occur here as everywhere else, the measures now in force guard as far as possible against a repetition of the former regrettable occurrences, and where these occur the offenders are brought to trial without delay.

Public Library, Matadi.

Soldiers’ Mess at Coquilhatville, (Equateur).