Brussels, May 18, 1903.
M. De Cuvelier handed to me this morning the documents herewith inclosed on the subject of the working of the Commission for the Protection of the Natives, instituted by the Congo State Government under the Decree of the 18th September, 1896, which had been collected and prepared for me in consequence of my request made to that effect the day before yesterday.
Your Lordship will observe that the Congo Government places at my disposal, without concealment, the whole correspondence which has passed in regard to the Commission under discussion, including dispatches not intended for publication. It undoubtedly leads to the conclusion that, if the operation of the Commission has not been so effective as might have been anticipated, the fault has rather been due to the great extent of territory which it had the duty to watch, and to the considerable distances by which its members were separated, and not to any deficiency of conception or absence of energy on the part of the Central Government.
SETTLEMENTS FOR NATIVE CHILDREN
Leopold II., King of the Belgians, Sovereign of the Independent State of the Congo,
To all present and to come, greeting:
Whereas it is expedient to make provision for the protection of those children who have been victims of the Slave Trade; and
Whereas it is the general duty of the State to assume the guardianship of abandoned children, or of those whose parents do not fulfil their duties;
Now, therefore, on the proposal of our Administrator-General of the Foreign Department, we have decreed and do hereby decree:—
Article 1. The State shall assume the guardianship of children liberated in consequence of the arrest and dispersal of a convoy of slaves; of fugitive slaves who demand such protection, of children forsaken, abandoned, or orphans, and of those whose parents do not fulfil their duty with regard to maintaining and educating them.