We observe in the spontaneous recognition accorded the youthful State—whatever its form of government may have been—prompt admission of its qualification as a member of the society of nations. This was before the signatory Powers to the General Act of Berlin had opportunity of indicating that sympathy which they expressed in substantial terms when they followed the example of the United States and Germany, and invited the Congo Government to participate in the Berlin Conference as a friendly State invested with all the attributes of statehood which their recognition implied.
Post Office, Boma.
It is contended by the advocates of the Congo Free State that the form of its government at any time before or after recognition can not in the slightest degree affect the question of the State’s actual existence. It matters not, say the European authorities—Barboux, Picard, Nys, Descamps, Van Berchem, Azcarate, de Martens, and Pierantoni, whether the earlier Government was composed of “federated Negro tribes”; a State ruled by monarchy; territorial and tribal allegiance to an organised central authority; by an autocrat employing civil and military powers, or any other scheme of equitable and civilised domination. The right of the Government to exist cannot be destroyed by latter-day technicalities of law adroitly applied. The point to be noted, says Baron Descamps, is that “the claim to the occupation of vacant territories and to the acquirement by cession of sovereign rights was not inferior to the titles relied upon by European Powers in the course of their colonial expansion.” All this was an element patent in the State’s foundation, obviously understood and admitted by the Powers which, while they assumed that the Congo Basin contained nothing of material or political value to excite their cupidity, they recognised and treated on a basis of equality—so far, at least, as the considerations of the Berlin Conference are concerned.
In the present chapter have been briefly considered the legal and ethical aspects of the birth and baptism of the Congo Free State, its romantic evolution from the enlightened forces put into play by the indomitable personal powers of a Prince of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In a succeeding chapter will be observed how the obligations imposed by the General Act of Berlin were discharged by the several Powers which assumed them.[6]
Native Boys, Boma.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Wheaton’s International Law.
[2] L’État Indépendant du Congo, M. Wauters, p. 27.