The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

Prison, with Carpenter’s Shop, at New Antwerp (Bangala).

In 1897, the services of Sir Charles Dilke were first enlisted against the Congo State. In that year it was evident to those who had previously erred in their estimate of the value of the Congo as a commercial and political asset, that the Free State would more than fulfil the early expectations of Leopold II. and Henry M. Stanley. The awakening to this fact is the genesis of the envy which enlivens Congolese history to-day. So long as Stanley sat in Parliament and avowed his confidence in the Belgians who are erecting a State upon the ruins of the slave trade, and so long as he reiterated to his colleagues on the benches there the truth of the practical difficulties in Central Africa, the campaign against the Congo State in England made little serious progress. When Stanley died, when his voice in defence of the great work which he had shared with the King of the Belgians could no longer expose the fallacies and the true motive of the despoiler, the Congophobe epidemic spread to America and became more virulent than ever.

Early in 1903, a number of British merchants expressed their grievance against the French Congo in a volume by the author[48] whose active hostility against the Belgian Congo has given currency to many false statements and unjust beliefs. In the preface to the story of the British Case in the French Congo, this writer states that:

The British merchants in the French Congo have been sacrificed to save the face of certain French politicians—to stave off for a while the inevitable exposure of a deplorable error of colonial policy. In the French Congo, rather than admit the overwhelming body of proof pointing to the Concessions Decree of 1899 being framed in ignorance, unworkable in practice, monstrously unjust in its effects upon the merchant and native alike, successive Colonial Ministers have endeavoured to square the circle, and, of course, they have lamentably failed. An existing trade has been destroyed, the colony is practically bankrupt, the revenue is steadily falling, the natives are either in open rebellion or thoroughly disaffected, the military expenditure has largely increased, and the Concessionaires will only last as long as they are allowed to maintain themselves by the ingenious system of fining the British firms—that is to say, until a way is graciously found for the latter to sell their factory depots and their merchandise (which, of course, is deteriorating steadily); or until, despairing finally of effectual home support, our merchants themselves destroy or embark all that remains of their actual possessions, and leave the country in a body.

The purely commercial considerations upon which this complaint against the French Congo is founded are quite apparent and need not form the subject of argument. It may be enlightening, however, to note the fact that since this impassioned book was hurled at the heads of Frenchmen across the English Channel, the Anglo-French rapprochement has been effected, and the entente cordiale of King Edward’s visit to Paris has likewise intervened to divert the merchant wrath from the French Congo to the Congo Free State. French Deputies have visited London and enjoyed that bounteous hospitality which none can gainsay of a British household; members of Parliament have gone to Paris and dignified the gaiety of the quai d’Orsai. Not a vestige of the British complaint against the French Congo now freights the air. Instead, there prevails a friendly persiflage between those two great powers.

Inasmuch as the concessionaire system adopted in the French Congo gave new impetus to the British campaign against the Belgian Congo, it may be profitable to examine what precipitated matters.

The occasion was the organisation in the French Congo of the system known as the régime des concessions. A decree of the President of the French Republic, dated March 28, 1899, divided the whole territory of the French Congo Colony between about forty concessionaire companies, which were to develop it under various conditions imposed upon them. The companies were granted all the rights of ownership over the ceded areas.

In 1901, several of these companies prohibited certain English merchants, who had been established in the country upwards of twenty-five years, from buying rubber direct from the natives, alleging that all natural produce belonged to the owner of the soil. Goods were even seized on their way to the English factories.

The injured traders complained that such action was not in accordance with the General Act of Berlin, the terms of which insure freedom of trade in the Congo Basin. They appealed to the French Congo courts, whose decision was in favour of the companies. Many judgments were pronounced, all of which held that the agricultural exploitation of the forests was an exclusive right of the concessionaire companies, and did not run counter to the provisions of the Berlin Act.