The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

These judgments were rendered by the Council of Appeal at Libreville, on November 27, 1901, the petitioners being John Holt & Company (Liverpool) and the defendants the Compagnie Française du Congo Occidental.

In spite of these judgments, British commercial circles persisted in the view that the concessions system was a violation of the free-trade clause of the Berlin Act. The Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool took the lead in a movement based upon this view. On September 30, 1901, a memorial was presented to the British Foreign Office protesting against the concessionaire régime in the French Congo, petitioning for an inquiry into its legality under the Berlin and Brussels Acts, and urging the British Government to insist on these Acts being respected by the French.

A similar memorial was presented on October 22, 1901, by the Manchester and Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, and in December of the same year delegates from ten British Chambers of Commerce were received in audience by Lord Lansdowne, who, according to the Paris Temps, acknowledged that their grievances were well founded and promised to do all in his power for those interested in the question.

At that time West Africa, the journal of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, renewed its campaign against the Congo Free State, accusing its administrators of being the principal sinners, inasmuch as the Free State’s land system had been copied in the French Congo and German East Africa. In its issue of October 26, 1901, West Africa called the Congo State fons et origo mali, and declared that it was the Belgian clique which had drawn France into the economic errors of its present system.

This campaign quickly assumed large proportions. West Africa continued to wage war against the French system of concessions and against the Congo Free State, the latter being bitterly denounced as the evil genius who conceived a land system which supported the State without the assistance of large revenue from the liquor trade or the presence of intriguing foreign merchants.

In the hope of putting an end to the Anglo-French difficulties in the Congo without raising questions of principle, the Temps of December 29, 1901, suggested that an amicable settlement be arranged between the French Government and the British traders affected by the concessionaire system in its West African Colony. By such arrangement, these traders would have received compensation for their loss. But, in a letter dated January 7, 1902, the Temps’ special correspondent in Liverpool warned the French that such an expedient would not put a stop to the agitation, and endeavoured to show in its true light the campaign which was going on in England.

Meantime the Aborigines’ Protection Society pursued its old course of agitating something, anything, so long as its secretary, freedom of speech, and the attention of a Foreign Office combined to afford opportunity. The purely commercial grievances of British traders who had been made to conform to Congolese law required new elements of support. What could be of greater assistance to their commercial schemes than the tearful work of the Aborigines’ Protection Society of England, the new Congo Reform Association of Liverpool, and their peculiar methods of playing upon the credulity, sentimentality, and the sympathies of susceptible and deluded persons whose leisure sought occupation and new interests? While the business brigade of the anti-Congo campaign sought to enlist the aid of the German Chambers of Commerce, the humanitarian scouts developed the atrocity theme—not so much against the French Power as against the Belgian pigmy. Belgium and the Congo Free State cannot resort to the arbitrament of that force which as a last resort decides the contests of all nations.

The opportunity for attracting the co-operation of commercial factions in Germany was greatly propitiated by the unfortunate Stokes incident. Stokes, a British subject, once a missionary, had become an itinerant trader, and came into the Congo State from German East Africa, where he had established headquarters. His caravan was largely composed of natives from German territory, and the goods they carried for the purpose of barter were to a large extent of German manufacture. When Stokes was caught, red-handed, bartering guns and ammunition with the native enemies of the Free State for ivory which they had unlawfully acquired, he was tried and executed. This summary disposal of a trader who had been undermining Belgian and native security in the Congo met with vehement protests in Germany as well as in England. Other factors began to operate in favour of an Anglo-German alliance against the Free State, not the least of which was the apprehension felt in Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin over the remarkable progress the Belgians were making with their transport facilities, whereby the trade of German East Africa was being diverted to the Free State. For a time, therefore, the German press joined the British in decrying the Belgian Government in Central Africa. German attacks upon the Congo State economic policy have, however, been largely confined to interested merchants or enlisted politicians. Herr von Bornhaupt, Prince F. d’Arenberg, and Consul Vohsen have been actively identified with German criticism of the Congo State’s policy, notwithstanding that Germany, as shown in a previous chapter, has inaugurated a land policy founded upon precisely the same principles as those which prevail in the Belgian Congo. The statement of Consul Vohsen that “the Congo State’s methods were diverting trade from the German East African colonies,” betrays, perhaps, the only pretext upon which the criticism of German merchants may rest.

Until recently the political attitude of certain German statesmen toward the Belgian Congo has been to bring about a revision of the Berlin Act of 1885. In announcing a desire to form an international league, Consul Vohsen said that its object should be to induce the Powers party “to revise the Berlin Act and to force the Congo State to respect its provisions.” Europeans suggest that the gentleman probably means, by this contradiction in terms, that the real aim of England, Germany, and France, working in secret combination against the energetic little fellow with the biggest part of Central Africa, is to come to an understanding which will on the part of England realise the prophetic utterance of Mr. Cecil Rhodes[49] and the ambitions of Lord Cromer and Sir Reginald Wingate in the Cape to Cairo schemes; on the part of Germany, establish a new western frontier for German East Africa; and on the part of France, the final adoption of definite settlements in the Soudan and on the east and south banks of the Congo River. In short, the million square miles of immensely rich territory lying within the borders of the Congo Free State can, when rudely wrested from the heroic pioneers of little Belgium, be used by the three European Powers dominant in Africa to enlarge the gouty, the bilious, and the apoplectic tints of the African continent. That such views are abundant throughout Europe, and that the humanitarian pretext on the part of Congo enemies is regarded with derision, is all too evident from the columns of the leading continental journals. European editors have referred to the Congo debate in the British Parliament on May 20, 1903, as a “Parliamentary raid,” and likened it to the Jameson Raid in the Transvaal, which acted on the principle of violating first, negotiating afterwards, but in the end bringing the whole subject within the pale of dispute, speculation, and bargain.

As long ago as 1897, Belgian statesmen were convinced that certain English statesmen, of whom Sir Charles Dilke was foremost, had espoused the cause of the commercial men of Liverpool and Manchester with intent to settle upon a purpose of hostility towards the Congo State. Whatever there may have been lacking to justify the Belgians in harbouring this belief at that time, intervening events have unfortunately confirmed them in their impression. Belgians connected with the Congo administration in Brussels still maintain what they said in 1897, that “there was a set purpose to create for the Congo State difficulties both in Africa and in Europe, to discredit it by magnifying isolated facts, and by preparing, under the colour of philanthropy, the moment when there could be produced the territorial and financial designs concealed behind that campaign. The plan is clearly traced. At the commencement a feint is made that the sacrificed interests of the native populations of the whole of Africa is the cause they have at heart, and the idea of a new conference is put forward. As soon as this idea has appeared to germinate and public opinion has been baited, it becomes a question of the Congo State alone, and the division of its territories is boldly spoken of.”