The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

And as on the river itself, so there shall be collected on these roads, railways, and canals only tolls calculated on the cost of construction, maintenance, and management, and on the profits due to the promoters.

As regards the tariff of these tolls, strangers and the natives of the respective territories shall be treated on a footing of perfect equality.

Article 30. Great Britain undertakes to apply the principles of freedom of navigation enunciated in Articles 26, 27, 28, and 29, on so much of the waters of the Niger, its affluents, branches, and outlets, as are or may be under her sovereignty or protection.

The rules which she may establish for the safety and control of navigation shall be drawn up in a way to facilitate, as far as possible, the circulation of merchant-ships.

It is understood that nothing in these obligations shall be interpreted as hindering Great Britain from making any rules of navigation whatever which shall not be contrary to the spirit of these engagements.

Great Britain undertakes to protect foreign merchants and all the trading nationalities on all those portions of the Niger which are or may be under her sovereignty or protection as if they were her own subjects, provided always that such merchants conform to the rules which are or shall be made in virtue of the foregoing.

Article 31. France accepts, under the same reservations, and in identical terms, the obligations undertaken in the preceding Articles in respect of so much of the waters of the Niger, its affluents, branches, and outlets, as are or may be under her sovereignty or protection.

Article 32. Each of the other Signatory Powers binds itself in the same way, in case it should ever exercise in the future rights of sovereignty or protection over any portion of the waters of the Niger, its affluents, branches, or outlets.

Article 33. The arrangements of the present Act of Navigation will remain in force in time of war. Consequently, the navigation of all neutral or belligerent nations will be in all times free for the usages of commerce on the Niger, its branches, its affluents, its mouths, and outlets, as well as on the territorial waters opposite the mouths and outlets of that river.

The traffic will remain equally free in spite of a state of war on the roads, railways, and canals mentioned in Article 29.