Let us hope that the policy established by the Congo State in this respect will not be changed. The strong black races which cover many parts of its territory will acquire the habit of regular work, in place of their primitive idleness. There will result from this what has resulted in countries long civilised. The countries in which people know how to work are strong, and in the van of progress. Such a future seems to me reserved for the Congo State if it perseveres in its present course.
The story of the Congo Free State offers great opportunity for speculation and for prophecy. Taking a broad view of the opinion prevalent in Europe and the United States, the conclusion that Great Britain seeks to acquire important territory in Central Africa is inevitable. This theory of the anti-Congo campaign is strenuously denied by all unofficial persons engaged in that campaign. And yet there are unmistakable signs that of the many theories so industriously exploited, British acquisition of the keystone of African territorial possession seems to be most in line with the history of British methods of expansion. The Free State is one-third the size of the United States. It lies squarely across the heart of Africa, with an outlet to the sea on the West Coast which brings it many miles and many days nearer European markets. It separates the British African Empire,—the Soudan and the Nile country adjoining the Free State on the north, from the Cape and the Boer war territorial acquisitions on the south. It is as if the Louisiana Purchase, owned by a small country, say Portugal, divided the United States. One might dwell long and interestingly upon the political possibilities of such a rich country and its great waterways separating the energies of the east and the west in our country’s social, political, and strategic solidarity. The British and the Germans appreciate the vast possibilities of the great African Continent. While the former expands its territory by costly wars, the latter, by adapting its methods to suit the native populations, encompasses the African market. While the former persists in imposing its ancient, crude, and ineffectual methods of colonial development, the latter, more modern, more direct, more flexible, is gaining trade and influence which might belong to intelligent British rule. The palsied arm and the obsolete method of regeneration, prevalent in the territories devastated by the Boer war, illustrate the incompetency of the present generation of British colonisers. Their failures are multiplying. It is the old story of worship of the Past, confusion in the Present, misconception of the Future.
Father Kisouru of the New Antwerp Mission (Bangala).
The Sultan Djabbir.
The growth of the Congo Free State has from the first been skilfully directed by clever men of thought and action. Now that the transformation is complete, and what but three short decades ago was the very heart of savagery has become a valuable commercial and political asset, the forcible ejectment from the African Continent of the authors of all this good is openly discussed! Such is the reward which it is proposed should be meted out to the gallant, self-sacrificing little nation which has replaced the horrors of barbarism by the blessings of civilisation, and incidentally discovered vast material wealth. After disposing of the Belgian African possession, that international pigmy, Portugal, occupying Delagoa Bay to the obvious chagrin of Britain, will be served with the long-expected writ of ejectment. These little fellows in Africa will have but one choice of leaving—by the door or by the window. Will the world tolerate such iniquity?—an iniquity of the baser sort, veiled with specious pretence. Much depends upon the attitude of the American people—youngest of the great nations, herself too recently emerged from the trials and tribulations which beset every newly created State not to discriminate between greed and hypocritical pretence on the one hand and conscientious well-doing on the other.
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