The appended Table of exports and imports of the Congo State, taken from the “Bulletin Officiel” for April 1903 (No. 4), will suffice to indicate the larger aspect of the situation of the native producer:—
| Exports from Congo State. | Imports to Congo State. | |
| Fr. | Fr. | |
| 1895 | 10,943,019 | 10,685,847 |
| 1896 | 12,389,599 | 15,227,776 |
| 1897 | 15,146,976 | 21,181,462 |
| 1898 | 22,163,481 | 23,084,446 |
| 1899 | 36,067,959 | 22,325,846 |
| 1900 | 47,377,401 | 24,724,108 |
| 1901 | 50,488,894 | 23,102,064 |
| 1902 | 50,069,514 | 18,080,909 |
The exports of native produce (“le négoce des autres produits indigènes”—“Bulletin Officiel,” April 1903, p. 65), it is seen, have enormously increased. They have considerably more than trebled in the six years from 1897 to 1902.
During the same period the imports into the Congo State—a small portion of which are trade goods for the purchase of produce or the remuneration of the producers—remained not merely stationary, but even decreased by 4,000,000 fr. during the last year.
These figures, as they stand, are remarkable. Their significance is increased when it is borne in mind that the population of the regions exporting this great increase of native produce has enormously decreased during the same period. That decrease is admitted by the authorities. (“Du reste, il n’est malheureusement que trop exact que la diminution de la population a été constatée”—“Notes,” p. 2) (p. 2, supra). We thus find that a diminishing population,[150] a diminishing market-value of the article produced and a diminishing means of purchase have been accompanied during a period of only six years by a more than trebled production.
It may be permitted to doubt whether this state of affairs is adequately explained anywhere in the Congo Government “Notes.”
It is not met by the statement on p. 14 (p. 9, supra) of this document:—
“Qu’il s’est agi de faire contracter l’habitude de travail à des indigènes qui y ont été réfractaires de tout temps.
“Et si cette idée du travail peut être plus aisément inculquée aux natifs sous la forme de transactions commerciales entre eux et des particuliers, faut-il nécessairement condamner ce mode d’action?” &c.
On the same page of the “Notes” (14) it is sought to institute a comparison between the system of taxation in force on the Congo and that in operation in North and Eastern Rhodesia, and the conclusion is drawn that, since the latter is justified in a British Colonial administration, no exception can be taken to the former.