The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

Gentlemen:—Our Conference, after long and laborious deliberations, has reached the end of its work, and I am happy to state that, thanks to your efforts, and to the spirit of conciliation which has presided at our negotiations, a complete agreement has been established on all the points of the programme which was submitted to us.

The resolutions which we are on the point of sanctioning assure to the commerce of all nations free access to the centre of the African Continent. The guarantees with which commercial liberty in the Basin of the Congo will be surrounded, and all the arrangements made in the Acts of Navigation for the Congo and the Niger, are of a nature to offer to the commerce and the industry of all nations the most favourable conditions for their development and security.

By another series of provisions you have shown your solicitude for the moral and material well-being of the native populations, and there is room to hope that those principles, dictated by a spirit of practical wisdom, will bear fruit and will contribute to bestow on those populations the benefits of civilisation.

The practical conditions under which are placed the vast regions that you have just opened to commercial enterprise have seemed to exact special guarantees for the maintenance of peace and public order. As a matter of fact, the evils of war would assume a particularly disastrous character if the natives were led to take part in the conflicts of civilised Powers. Justly preoccupied with the dangers that such an eventuality would entail in the interests of commerce and of civilisation, you have sought the means of withdrawing a great part of the African Continent from the vicissitudes of general politics, by restraining these national rivalries to the pacific competition of commerce and industry.

In the same category you have aimed at preventing the misunderstanding and contests to which new seizures of territory on the coasts of Africa might give rise. The declaration as to the formalities to be complied with in order to make acquisitions of territory effective has introduced into public right a new regulation, which will contribute in its degree to remove from international relations causes of dissension and conflict.

The spirit of mutual good understanding which has distinguished your deliberations has equally presided over the negotiations which have taken place outside the Conference, with the object of regulating difficult questions of delimitation between the parties which exercise sovereign rights in the basin of the Congo, and which by the nature of their position are called upon to become the chief guardians of the work which we are about to sanction.

I cannot touch on this subject without rendering my homage to the noble efforts of His Majesty the King of the Belgians, the founder of a work which is to-day recognised by almost all the Powers, and which by its consolidation may render precious services to the cause of humanity.

Gentlemen, I am charged by His Majesty the Emperor and King, my august master, to express to you his warmest thanks for the part that each of you has taken in the happy accomplishment of the task of the Conference.

I fulfil a final duty in making myself the mouthpiece of the gratitude that the Conference owes those of its members who have discharged the difficult labours of the Commission, notably the Baron de Courcel and the Baron Lambermont. I also thank the delegates for the valuable assistance they have afforded us, and I associate with the expression of that gratitude the Secretaries of the Conference, who by the precision of their work have facilitated our task.

Gentlemen, the work of the Conference will be, like every human undertaking, susceptible of improvement and perfection; but it will mark, I hope, a step forward in the development of international relations, and will form a new link of solidarity between civilised nations.