The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

Convent of Franciscans of St. Gabriel of the Falls (Oriental Province).

MR. GREY

(English Civil Engineer)

From the “Morning Post” (London), January 20, 1903.

Since I returned to England a few weeks ago I have read some correspondence in the Morning Post on the subject of the administration in the Congo State. I am an Englishman, and have during the last two years led an expedition of the Tanganyika Concessions (Limited), organised in Rhodesia to explore and search for minerals in the Katanga district of the Congo State. During the latter part of 1901 and the whole of 1902 sections of this expedition have explored and settled in the district of Katanga, and at the same time the representatives of the Special Katanga Committee have occupied and governed the country. It is almost impossible for one man to have intimate knowledge of more than a portion of the territory of the Congo Free State, and I can only claim to know a small and remote section. Still, seeing that so much attention has been directed of late to Belgian administration in the Congo, my experiences in that country may be of interest. It is, perhaps, necessary to explain that the Special Katanga Committee, the governing body in Brussels of the territories of Katanga, is composed of the representatives of an amalgamation between the separate interests of the Congo Free State Government and the Katanga Company. The former originally owned two-thirds, the latter one-third, of that portion of the Congo State. This administration is entirely Belgian, and the African staff is composed of a representative of the committee, whose headquarters are at Lukonzolwa, on Lake Mweru, and who occupies the position of administrator, and of numerous officials, civil and military, in charge of the various sections of the district and departments of the administration. The country is garrisoned by a large force of native troops, with European officers. My duties have confined me to the section of the district called the Upper Luapula Section, which borders on the south and east with Northern Rhodesia. I have visited the chief of that section, Mr. Vervloet, at his headquarters at Lukafu, and an officer of the Katanga force with a few soldiers has been attached to my expedition.

I have, therefore, had considerable opportunity on the spot of learning the instructions which the Special Committee give their officials, and how those instructions are carried out. I myself and many members of my expedition have become fairly intimate with the native inhabitants of large portions of this district, and have from time to time employed as carriers and miners several hundred labourers. That the natives of this country had never suffered ill-treatment from white men was evident to me from the time I entered the country. They showed no hesitation in working for my expedition and in bringing quantities of food to sell, and always seemed quite confident that fair payment would be given, both for labour and food. I have lived for many years in parts of Africa in which the native inhabitants were for the first time coming under the influence of European government, and where conditions rendered the aid of such government by native troops necessary. It is almost impossible constantly to restrain the tendency to oppress and ill-treat his less powerful countrymen which is inherent in the native soldier, and I do not believe that it ever happens that the advent of that form of government is unaccompanied by acts of injustice and oppression. Generally there is a constant effort on the part of the European officer to prevent such acts and punish offenders. My experience is that this is especially the case in the district of Katanga. The regulations of the Special Committee provide that no armed parties of soldiers should travel or patrol without a European officer. Native soldiers are not allowed to enter villages alone, and weekly markets are held at which a European official buys food for his soldiers from the neighbouring villages, so endeavouring to do away as far as possible with direct dealing between the soldier and the people. My experience of the last two years has convinced me that in the district of Katanga at any rate the Belgian officials endeavour to treat the Central African native with justice and leniency, and in as great a degree as officials of any other nation look on him as a human being, with a perfect right to sell his labour and his food on terms satisfactory to himself. When I first entered the Congo, at the time that the officials of the Special Committee were establishing their government, and before I had come into personal contact with them, I found some armed natives who posed as soldiers of the Belgian Government, and who lived more or less the life of robbers, raiding and stealing wherever they went. The natives believed that these men were the authorised police of the European Administration, whose white officials they had not yet seen, and members of my expedition reported to me on the shocking behaviour of the Belgian Askari. I later learnt the complete mistake we had made in believing these men to be Government employees. In a short time they completely disappeared, caught or driven out by the agents of the committee. The Ba-Luba and Wasanga, the tribes we have been working among, are, we find, a peaceable, industrious race, with practically no warlike propensity, an easy prey to any organised hostile force. I am led to believe that their numbers have decreased during the last fifty years owing to a continuous traffic in slaves with the Arabs of the East and Mambunda of the West. To-day the slave trade has ceased in this particular district, the traders being afraid to come anywhere near the Belgian posts. To such an extent have conditions changed with the advent of Belgian administration that many small chiefs are now recovering individuals raided from them by their stronger neighbours and not already sold to the traders when European control reached the country.

In all discussions and criticism of the mistakes made by European administration in Central Africa there is one condition which seems to me to be never taken into account. That is the necessity of employing officials who have to spend a long time learning how to do efficiently the work that they have to carry on from the day they arrive at their posts. There is no school in which to learn Central African Civil Service except Central Africa, and it is impossible in Africa to obtain a sufficient number of qualified officials. Not many go to Central Africa with the idea of making their permanent homes there. It has been my own good fortune to settle in a healthy part of Central Africa, but from my knowledge of the Continent as a whole, I think it is not an exaggeration to state that two-thirds of the officials who leave Europe are, within five years of their arrival, either killed by the climate, invalided home, or have left the country at the termination of an agreement. All these have to be constantly replaced by inexperienced men, with their job to learn. What wonder then that grievous mistakes are sometimes made by some of these untried men, necessarily placed in responsible positions? In writing this letter to you, I state only my own experience and opinion of the spirit and effect of Belgian administration in the district of Katanga; but it seems natural to me to suppose that the same spirit extends throughout the whole of the Congo territory; and it seems almost the duty, at the present time, of any Englishman who has had opportunity to judge of the general methods of Belgian administration to give publicity to his knowledge.—Yours, etc.,

G. Grey.

Cardinal Gibbons Speaks out.

In presence of testimony such as this, it is not matter for surprise that His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, should have characterised as inopportune the consideration by the recent Peace Congress at Boston of the oft-refuted accusations brought against the Congo Free State. Where not absolutely false in every particular (as the majority of these slanderous stories most certainly are), they are grossly exaggerated, distorted out of all resemblance to the events they are based upon, and mendaciously attributed to a Government that has consistently and unswervingly repressed wrongdoing, of whatever kind, or by whomsoever done, and brought the light of civilisation to a vast barbarian population more thoroughly and in less time than was ever done before.