Correspondence and Report from His Majesty's Consul at Boma Respecting the Administration of the Independent State of the Congo [and Further Correspondence]

by Roger Casement

It is, however, with regard to the system of administration that the most serious allegations are brought against the Independent State.

It is reported that no efforts are made to fit the native by training for industrial pursuits; that the method of obtaining men for labour or for military service is often but little different from that formerly employed to obtain slaves; and that force is now as much required to take the native to the place of service as it used to be to convey the captured slave. It is also reported that constant compulsion has to be exercised in order to exact the collection of the amount of forest produce allotted to each village as the equivalent of the number of days’ labour due from the inhabitants, and that this compulsion is often exercised by irresponsible native soldiers uncontrolled by any European officer.

His Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent these accusations may be true; but they have been so repeatedly made, and have received such wide credence, that it is no longer possible to ignore them, and the question has now arisen whether the Congo State can be considered to have fulfilled the special pledges, given under the Berlin Act, to watch over the preservation of the native tribes, and to care for their moral and material advancement.

The graver charges against the State relate almost exclusively to the upper valleys of the Congo and of its affluents. The lands forming these vast territories are held either by the State itself or by Companies closely connected with the State, under a system which, whatever its object, has effectually kept out the independent trader, as opposed to the owner or to the occupier of the soil, and has consequently made it difficult to obtain independent testimony.

His Majesty’s Government have further laboured under the disadvantage that British interests have not justified the maintenance of a large Consular staff in the Congo territories. It is true that in 1901 His Majesty’s Government decided to appoint a Consul of wide African experience to reside permanently in the State, but his time has been principally occupied in the investigation of complaints preferred by British subjects, and he has as yet been unable to travel into the interior and to acquire, by personal inspection, knowledge of the condition of the enormous territory forming his district.

His reports on the cases of British subjects, which have formed the basis of representations to the Government of the Independent State, afford, however, examples of grave maladministration and ill-treatment. These cases do not concern natives of the Congo State, and are therefore in themselves alien to the subject of this despatch; but as they occurred in the immediate vicinity of Boma, the seat of the central staff, and in regard to British subjects, most of whom were under formal engagements, they undoubtedly lead to the belief that the natives, who have no one in the position of a Consul to whom they can appeal and have no formal engagements, receive even less consideration at the hands of the officers of the Government.

Moreover, information which has reached His Majesty’s Government from British officers in territory adjacent to that of the State tends to show that, notwithstanding the obligations accepted under Article VI of the Berlin Act, no attempt at any administration of the natives is made, and that the officers of the Government do not apparently concern themselves with such work, but devote all their energy to the collection of revenue. The natives are left entirely to themselves, so far as any assistance in their government or in their affairs is concerned. The Congo stations are shunned, the only natives seen being soldiers, prisoners, and men who are brought in to work. The neighbourhood of stations which are known to have been populous a few years ago is now uninhabited, and emigration on a large scale takes place to the territory of neighbouring States, the natives usually averring that they are driven away from their homes by the tyranny and exaction of the soldiers.

The sentiments which undoubtedly animated the founders of the Congo State and the Representatives of the Powers at Berlin were such as to deserve the cordial sympathy of the British Government, who have been loath to believe either that the beneficent intentions with which the Congo State was constituted, and of which it gave so solemn a pledge at Berlin, have in any way been abandoned, or that every effort has not been made to realize them.

But the fact remains that there is a feeling of grave suspicion, widely prevalent among the people of this country, in regard to the condition of affairs in the Congo State, and there is a deep conviction that the many charges brought against the State’s administration must be founded on a basis of truth.

In these circumstances, His Majesty’s Government are of opinion that it is incumbent upon the Powers parties to the Berlin Act to confer together and to consider whether the obligations undertaken by the Congo State in regard to the natives have been fulfilled; and, if not, whether the Signatory Powers are not bound to make such representations as may secure the due observance of the provisions contained in the Act.