Without further enlargement upon so trivial an altercation as that which actually occurred between the canoe boys of a passing trader and some natives of the neighbourhood, it is only necessary to call attention to the discrepancy which exists between M. de Cuvelier’s complaint of the 2nd December and the terms in which it is now formulated.
In the former communication the Secretary of the Congo Government addressed the Congo Balolo Mission in terms of reproof upon a subject upon which he was obviously but imperfectly informed, since he asserted the incident to have occurred after Mr. Casement’s departure from Bonginda, and the offensive words to have been addressed to a Government official. Dr. Guinness, however, explained to M. de Cuvelier that the incident occurred when Mr. Casement was present, that it had no significance, and that the canoe jeered at by the natives contained, not a State Agent, but an agent of the Lulanga Company; further, that the words used were, in reality, not those imputed, but: “The rubber is finished; the people refuse to work rubber.” Yet in spite of this explanation, which seems amply sufficient, the “Notes” still maintain that the incident shows that Mr. Casement’s attitude was incorrect.
The next subject discussed in the “Notes” is what has come to be known as the Epondo Case.
This is dealt with at great length, and the explanation for so doing is afforded by a statement that His Majesty’s Consul himself attributed a capital importance to it. The inference that it is intended to draw would seem to be that since the result of the investigations made by the local authorities, subsequent to Mr. Casement’s departure, is said to have demonstrated quite other facts than those he had too hastily assumed, the rest of his Report need not be taken seriously.
From a consideration of the Consul’s Report, it will be seen that the case of this boy Epondo is dealt with in one single paragraph of thirty-seven lines of print on p. 56, and is referred to again in some few lines of p. 58, in all less than one page of a document of thirty-nine pages; while in the Appendix of nearly twenty-three pages of print a copy of the notes taken by Mr. Casement in the case at Bosunguma extends to less than two pages.
On the other hand, the Congo Government, in their reply, devote some six or seven pages of a document of eighteen pages in all to endeavouring to show that in the case of this one mutilated individual, the boy’s hand had not been cut off by a sentry, but had been bitten off by a wild boar; and in the Appendix to the “Notes,” which comprises nineteen pages of small print, more than ten pages are devoted to extracts from the proceedings in this one case.
Thus, of a document running to thirty-seven pages in all, almost one-half is assigned to a single incident which, in Mr. Casement’s Report, had given occasion for some two and a quarter pages of remark and notes out of nearly sixty pages of printed matter.
Far from having attributed capital importance to this incident, it is evident from the Report itself that it was but one of many cases calling for explanation brought to Mr. Casement’s notice during his journey, and that he himself by no means attributed to it undue weight.
To show how far he was from generalizing from this one incident, it is only necessary to cite a letter he addressed to the Governor-General on the 4th September when in the Lopori River, 150 miles away from Bosunguma (of the existence of which he did not then know), written some days before the cases of mutilation on the Lower Lulongo were brought to his notice. In that letter, which dealt mainly with certain illegalities he had observed in the Abir territory at Bongandanga, he said:—
“I am sure your Excellency would share my feelings of indignation had the unhappy spectacles I have witnessed of late come before your Excellency’s own eyes.