If the native sentries or capitas of these factories ranged the country with unlicensed arms, if these “Commercial” Companies made war on the natives, it was the Congo Government which carried those arms to their destinations and placed them in the hands of those who used them illegally.
“Nonobstant les précautions incessantes, le Consul a constaté que plusieurs capitas n’étaient pas porteurs de permis.”
(“Notes” of the Congo Government, the 12th March, 1904.)
The law prescribes clearly that no weapon can be issued for individual use save on the authority and personal licence of the Government.
That this law can be effectively observed was evidenced in Mr. Casement’s own case. A Winchester rifle for his use arrived on the Congo while he was in the interior. It could not be dispatched to him from Boma to Stanley Pool (where he found it on coming down river) until a licence had been granted. This rifle was branded and numbered according to law and the tax of 20 fr. levied.
A law thus rightly obligatory in the case of a foreign official, who could not be suspected of misuse of the weapon he had imported, should have had at least as stringent application to the capitas, and forest guards and sentries of the numerous Companies, which are shown by the Government Circulars quoted to have been recognized for years as seeking to evade the law.
That the Congo Government have intimate cognizance of the exact number of guns in use by the commercial Companies on the Upper Congo is evident, since every case of rifles and “ballot de fusils” imported into the Congo State has to enter the custom-house of Boma or Matadi, where it can only be withdrawn by authority.
Its subsequent transport to the interior is effected often by direct Government carriage, and always under Government control and supervision.
The Government of the Congo State, in concluding these preliminary “Notes” on Mr. Casement’s Report, formulate a complaint as to the manner in which he proceeded in investigating native statements brought to his notice.
This complaint has application to the one case of the boy Epondo, and to that case alone.