These removals along the banks of the river have sometimes created the impression on a superficial observer that the population of the Congo Free State has diminished or disappeared. Regardless of the impression these deserted villages have made upon those who seek to find opportunity for vilifying the Congo Government, the inconvenience resulting from the constant removals has been very great. There is often at one point an aggregation of people too numerous for their subsistence, and public order and tranquillity are disturbed, with disastrous results. More strife between village and village and tribe and tribe has been occasioned by this migratory habit than by any bloodthirsty instinct inherent in the Congolese black. This is notoriously true; and it has had a gravely adverse effect, too, upon the population of the Soudan, with regard to which the statements in Lord Cromer’s report of 1893 are conclusive.
Possible Remedies.
Vice-Governor-General Fuchs, always seeking to improve the governmental machinery of the Congo Free State, has recently made the following suggestions, which, if adopted, he believes would tend to control the migratory nature of the subjects over whom he so intelligently rules:
I think that it would be opportune to pass the necessary legislative measures, so that an end may be put to this collective kind of vagabondage. The administrative authority finds itself at present unarmed, the Congo courts having declared the absolute right of the native to move about and to dwell where he likes. But it appears to me that public order is directly interested in having these emigrations in a mass, from region to region in the interior of the country, regulated by law. This regulation would also result in assured stability for a fair distribution of native taxes. It would also facilitate the establishment of definite and permanent means of communication throughout the country.
Dutch House, Banana.
There is, however, still a special case to be taken into consideration. Some natives on removing in this way are ready to establish themselves on the territory of one or other of those Sultans whose native authority extends beyond, as well as within, the political frontiers of the State. The determination of the sovereign power such individuals may wield might, owing to the silence of our laws, not be without future difficulty, when, for instance, Sultans, established on foreign territory and dependent themselves for it on foreign power, are concerned. It would be well if all doubtful elements were removed by a decree which in a general manner might establish the principle that every native of Congolese origin who, by naturalisation or otherwise, shall endeavour to modify his national status, will still be considered as a subject of the Congo State, and remain amenable to Congolese law, so long as he shall reside, in fact, within the limits of the State territory.
From this it will be observed that in addition to the numerous other difficulties with which the new State has to contend, it is now called upon to legislate for the solution of a problem which the State’s detractors have distorted and misrepresented as a result of the State’s cruel system of government.
The importance of this question cannot be overstated, as it forms a great hindrance to the proper organisation of so vast a territory as the Congo Basin. That the potentialities of King Leopold’s beneficent rule in Central Africa will eventually legislate wisely, and permanently abolish this native inconsistency, no one who has observed the intelligent governmental genius of the State can doubt.