The Conference convened on November 18, 1889, and held the last of its thirty-three sessions on the July 2, 1890. The King of the Belgians had again welcomed the representatives of all the Powers party to the Berlin Act. Persia, having meantime adhered to that Act, was also represented. The Prince de Chimay, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, presided at the formal opening of the Conference. At its first session Baron Lambermont was unanimously elected to preside over its deliberations. His able associate at Berlin, M. Emile Banning, also represented Belgium at this Conference, while Baron Van Eetvelde, for many years devoted to its moral and material development, represented the Congo Free State. Chief among other distinguished representatives were Count von Alvensleben for Germany, M. Bourée for France, Lord Vivian and Sir John Kirk for Great Britain, Mr. Terrell, Minister at Brussels, for the United States, and Prince Ourroussof and Professor Martens for Russia.
Foremost in the work of framing a proposed Act, under which the Congo Free State inherited great responsibility and a tremendous task, were the Belgian representatives. The other interested Powers pledged themselves to join, each in its own territory, in the anti-slavery campaign which the Act prescribed. Briefly stated, the signatories to the General Act of this Conference declared that they were “animated by the firm intention of putting an end to the crimes and devastation engendered by the traffic in African slaves, of protecting effectually the aboriginal populations of Africa, and of insuring for that vast continent the benefits of peace and civilisation.”
The General Act.
The first article, relating to effective methods of suppressing slave-raiding in the Congo Basin, was divided into seven sections:
The first provided for the progressive organisation of administrative, judicial, religious, and military services—in fact, the whole machinery of government. The second remedy was to be the gradual establishment in the interior of strong protective and repressive stations. The third clause provided for the construction of roads and railroads, so that human porterage might be ended. The fourth, for the placing of steamers on the lakes and inland waters. The fifth, for the laying down of telegraph lines. And the sixth, for the organisation of expeditions by movable columns. While these clauses were of an active character, the seventh came under the head of prohibition. It provided for restriction in the import of firearms, and especially of modern rifles and ammunition, within the whole extent of the territory affected by the slave trade. The General Act only provided for the restriction in the import of firearms; but the King, in the administrative decree, applying its provisions to the Congo State, interdicted the importation, traffic, and transport of all rifles, as well as of powder, bullets, and cartridges. The same decree imposed severe penalties on those who in any way violated these regulations.
The second article of the Act laid down that “the stations and the interior cruisers shall have for their object the prevention of the capture of slaves, and the interception of the routes of transit. They shall extend their efficacious protection over all the dependent populations within the range of their authority, by prohibiting intestine war, and by initiating them into agricultural labour. They will assist commerce, verifying labour contracts; they will aid the missions, and they will organise a sanitary service.”[13]
The second article, recognising the duty of the Powers to prevent slave-raiding in the territory under their control, adopted, amongst others, the following prescription:
To support and, if necessary, to serve as a refuge for the native populations; to place those under their sovereignty in a position to co-operate for their own defence; to diminish intertribal wars by means of arbitration; to initiate the natives in agricultural pursuits and industrial arts, so as to increase their welfare; to raise them by civilisation and bring about the extinction of barbarous customs, such as cannibalism and human sacrifices; and, in giving aid to commercial enterprises, to watch over their legality, controlling especially the contracts for service entered into with natives.
The third and fourth articles contained the pledge of all the interested Powers to assist in enforcing these commendable provisions for the betterment of the black races in Africa. The succeeding apathy of the Powers in no wise abated the energy of the Congo Free State in its heroic effort to realise for civilisation the views which Belgian statesmen had largely inspired at the Conference. The Belgian campaigns against the Arabs, briefly narrated in succeeding chapters, were only one phase of those multiform difficulties which beset the pioneer in savage lands where the heralds of civilisation find it necessary to suppress the old and impose a new order of life upon untutored human beings.
Alcohol and Civilisation.