The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

Conditions in 1895.

From the latest report of the Vice-Governor-General of the Congo Free State are quoted below statements which shed light upon the belief held by the Belgians concerning their own fiscal policy, and the attitude they offer to the criticisms of its burly neighbour, Great Britain, in its rule of the Soudan and its other colonial possessions:

In the region of commerce the Congo State, which was the first to inscribe in its international conventions the principles of liberty, has not failed, no matter what any one says to the contrary, in the programme which was drawn up in 1884, and of which, as has recently been recalled, Stanley was made the spokesman. The régime of the “open door,” which has just been claimed by the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, at the very moment, too, when purely philanthropic declarations were being heard in the House of Commons, is that also of the Congo State; and there cannot be discovered in our territory the existence of monopolies such as those of ivory and rubber which the Government of the Soudan has created for its own profit in some parts of the Soudan.[11]

The traders of all nations may sell on the Congo the objects of their commerce, and buy the natural produce from the proprietors of the soil; no limit, no hindrance is placed on this traffic, and that is really freedom of trade. That this freedom may remain complete notwithstanding the existence of the domain rights, and the granting of concessions, has been proved up to the hilt, and to declare, as has been done in the House of Commons, that trade does not exist on the Congo is to put oneself in contradiction with the law and the facts. These statements, by repetition, end by being considered as axioms, and it is not realised that they still await proof. The régime of concessions, besides, has not been established for the exclusive advantage or benefit of the Belgians; the opening was given to foreign initiative and capital without distinction to become interested in the development of the country, and if, by a want of confidence that the event has not justified, English capital was withdrawn from some Congolese undertakings, the prosperous condition of which is now made a grievance, it does not follow therefrom that those who did run the risk inherent in enterprises in new countries should see to-day the results of their efforts and their perseverance assailed.

It is to the astonishment, not to say to the general indignation, of the handful of Europeans who are working, and undergoing hardships on the spot, that these attempts are made abroad to represent them all, from the highest place to the most obscure of the assistants, as associated in an odious work of destruction and inhumanity. The duty of protesting against this legend is imposed on whoever has seen with his own eyes these territories, once disinherited, being opened to civilisation, evangelisation, and progress; populations, formerly troops of slaves, reborn to confidence and freedom; the rapid economic equipment, the railways under exploitation or construction, a flotilla which covers the river and its affluents, routes which open up the most distant regions, telegraphic and telephonic lines to the Upper River, cultivation and plantation gradually extending, cattle introduced into every district, mission establishments opened in all parts, vaccine institutions, and services of medical, sanitary, and hygienic orders. Such are some of the results of what has been called the system of the State, a system which was inspired before everything by the vows of the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, and it could not be explained how it has been possible for the State’s adversaries to cry it down if it were not known that their customary tactics are to lay stress on the inevitable imperfections of a work of that extent still, after all, in the stage of its beginning....

As concerns cotton, which before the Mahdist invasion was seemingly cultivated in a sufficiently considerable degree, I hold it on good authority that in Cairo and Lower Egypt some little disquietude is being shown on the subject of the activity displayed by the Belgians on the Upper Nile, and that some apprehension is felt there of a cotton competition in the near future.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] September, 1904.

[9] New Africa, p. 68.

[10] New Africa, p. 67.