Dawn in darkest Africa

by John H. Harris

ECONOMIC EXHAUSTION

For nearly a quarter of a century the Congo territories have suffered from uncontrolled exploitation. Twenty-five years ago the forests were thick with mature Landolphia rubber vines. This species of rubber is of very slow growth and probably some thousands of the larger vines extend over 100 years. Scientifically tapped in the season, this great vegetable asset would to-day have been almost unimpaired and the Congo could still have continued pouring forth 5000 tons of rubber per annum to Europe. Nothing of the kind was attempted; the stores of vegetable wealth carefully husbanded by nature for generations were exposed to ruthless plunder, the mad scramble for rubber at any cost to humanity and common-sense denuded the forests. The vine growths of a generation were hacked to pieces, and even to-day millions of dead fragments of vine may be seen scattered all over the hinterland forests. Even the roots were not spared, for the unhappy natives, driven to desperation by the white rubber collectors tore up the roots and forced them to disgorge their stores of latex. Rubber is still to be found, but in much smaller quantities, in the Aruwimi district in the north, the Lomame and Lukenya basins in the east, and also in certain districts in the Lake Leopold region, but no merchant should to-day enter the Congo with a view to making money from virgin rubber.

King Leopold knew all along what the Belgian Government now knows—that the greatest economic asset of the Congo would have disappeared by the time the Belgians inherited the colony, and he met the situation by the issue of two decrees: one instructing all agents and Government officials to lay down rubber plantations round every factory, and the other promulgating heavy fines and penalties for the severance of indigenous rubber vines. The latter decree was generally treated by whites and natives alike as an instruction “pour rire”—a fact known and probably anticipated by King Leopold. The instruction to lay down rubber plantations happened to meet to perfection a feature in the system of Congo State exploitation.

In those early days—from about 1897 to 1904—there might be seen at every rubber collecting centre gangs of men, women and even children, chained or roped together by the neck, and these were the hostages which were being held by the “Administration” until a sufficiency of rubber had been brought in to redeem them. Generally these hostages were captured from amongst the old, the sick and afflicted, or even from the women and children, the object being to force the young and able-bodied into the forests to gather the rubber which would “redeem” the father, mother, sister or child.

THE CHAIN GANG

The question which had hitherto confronted the officials was that of finding work for the hostages, for the Royal Rubber Merchant was known to favour every expedient which would strengthen the faith of the natives in the dignity of labour. The instructions, therefore, to lay down rubber plantations exactly met the situation, and the thousands of hostages throughout the Congo were forthwith set to the task of clearing forests and planting rubber. This removed from the wretched hostages their last hope of prolonged liberty, for it became doubly advantageous to capture and retain them. The slightest shortage of rubber was a sufficient pretext for capturing more hostages and thus provide labour for the plantations. A perfect equation was in this way maintained—if less rubber came in from the forests, more hostages would be laying down this new source of potential revenue. Tongue cannot tell, neither can pen portray the miseries involved in the laying down of these plantations, but the sight of the suffering natives can never be effaced from memory. The Congo chain gang respected neither position, age nor sex, sickness or health; it held fast alike the old chief, the weakly man, the young girl and the expectant mother—a terrified mass of humanity trembling under the dreaded crack of the whips. The sentry overseers regarded them as the carrion of the Congo, for their relatives were guilty of the greatest of all offences, inability to satisfy the impossible demands for rubber. The infant in terror clung closer to the mother, as the woman winced under the lash of the whip. The young wife brought forth her first-born in her captivity and was left without any attention to battle with her weakness, or to succumb. To make a recovery was to resume her work of rubber planting within two or three days, with the new-born babe tied to her back. Darker deeds, too, were committed, and some rubber trees of to-day were literally planted in the blood of victims.

A writer, “Father Castelin,” greatly impressed with the wisdom of this undertaking, but apparently caring nothing about its tragedy of human suffering, estimated from documents placed at his disposal that the “new source of revenue” which had been bequeathed to the Belgian nation, provided 13,000,000 rubber trees. This “new source of revenue” could hardly fail to provide an annual return of less than two francs a tree, thus assisting the budget with an asset of more than a million sterling per annum. This alluring prospect so impressed the new Belgian Colonial Minister that he added to his difficult and recently acquired administrative task that of rubber production on a “business basis.”

When Monsieur Renkin introduced his famous Congo reform bill, it contained a proposal to extend the existing plantations by 50,000 acres. This in itself was a serious departure from recognized colonial principles in that it wedded the newly acquired colony, for better or for worse, to commercial undertakings. The whole enterprise from beginning to end is beyond question a miserable fiasco.

In our recent travels we have visited large numbers of these plantations. They are all of them characterized by neglect, the majority have been abandoned and are everywhere falling a prey to rapidly growing forest undergrowth. A considerable proportion of the trees, as if in protest against the violence which their planting involved, are now drying up from the roots. In spite of the millions of rubber trees planted in the Congo, many of these being more than ten years old, no plantation rubber has yet been profitably exported, nor is there any hope entertained by the officials on the spot that plantation rubber will ever be an economic success.

Inseparably interwoven with the exhaustion of the economic resources is the exhaustion of the people themselves and the break up of their social life. Stanley estimated the whole of the Congo population at something over 40,000,000. This was, of course, the merest guess, but probably the Powers at Berlin did commit to the care of King Leopold not less than half that number, i.e. 20,000,000. To-day the official estimate gives the total population at something under 8,000,000. It may be asked whether I should estimate that more than 12,000,000 of people perished under King Leopold’s régime. I can only reply—certainly not less. The only ascertainable data upon which an estimate can be based would amply confirm such a statement. Many towns whose population was known almost to a man twenty-five years ago have disappeared entirely, and there is not one town to-day but has lost over 75 per cent. of its population within the last three decades. There is one redeeming feature, viz., that since Belgian occupation there is some evidence that in several districts the appalling death rate and low birth rate show signs of regaining a more normal standard. This was the most apparent in the old sleeping sickness areas, for we noticed that wherever the Belgian reforms had been most completely applied, there the ravages of sleeping sickness appeared to be more or less checked.