I HAVE the honour to transmit herewith, for your Lordship’s information, a copy of the Judgment in Appeal in the cases of M. Caudron and Silvanus Jones.
I am informed that the Procureur d’État demanded the severest punishment for Caudron, accusing him of being the direct cause of the murder in cold blood of over 122 natives (this is the number verified, but many more are supposed to have been murdered of which there is no record) during his expeditions and raids in the Mongalla district for the obtainment of rubber, in order to reap a handsome commission on his extortions from the natives.
The lawyer for the defence sought, on the other hand, to prove by documents and other evidence that Caudron committed no individual act save the accidental shooting of the women at Muibembetti; that the whole of the responsibility of the régime in vogue in Mongalla lay at the door of the State, who employed the Société Commerciale Anversoise as its tax collector, the State itself being half shareholder and taking three-fourths of all the profits of the Company; that the Company operated on the Domaine Privé of the State, having no lands of its own; that all the attacks on the natives were ordered by the Commissaire-Général of the district, who gave written orders to his deputies, and that Caudron was only requisitioned to accompany those expeditions as being the only person who knew every nook and corner of the Mongalla River.
As your Lordship will observe, Caudron’s sentence was reduced from twenty years’ penal servitude to fifteen years’, whilst that of Silvanus Jones, of ten years, was upheld, but with a strong recommendation for a speedy reduction of the sentence, which was the least the Court could impose.
After the Judgment in Appeal, I obtained permission from the Vice-Governor-General to go and visit Jones in prison, and inclosed I send a note of my interview with him.
On speaking to the Director of Justice, after my interview with Jones, I mentioned the fact that the man had not been defended by counsel, to which the Director replied that his case ran concurrently with that of Caudron’s, and that there was no necessity for him to employ counsel.
As a matter of fact, Jones was not asked whether he wished to employ counsel to defend him, neither was he (according to his statement) aware of the nature of the charges made against him. He had money, and would have engaged some one to defend him had he known what those charges were. He was, he said, under the impression that he had been brought to Boma as a witness against Caudron.
I inclose a further note, given me by the Director of Justice, which gives the different Decrees dealing with arms and showing the infractions committed by Jones.
“Out of evil comes good” is an old saying, and it is my opinion that, if the Upper Congo were thrown open to free trade and the concessionnaire Companies done away with, when once confidence were restored amongst the natives and they were given to understand that they could bring in and sell their produce to whomsoever they pleased, the Congo State would in a short while become the biggest export market for rubber in the world.
The African native is a born trader, and now it is so well known the value the white men set upon rubber they would naturally commence to bring it in when once confidence were fully restored. The State would reap its reward in the trading licences and export duties. And that is all it is fairly entitled to.