Were their application enforced it is abundantly clear that a situation such as that I found in existence at W* could not arise, and much of the general unhappiness and distress of the natives I witnessed on all sides would disappear along with the fines and much also of the “prestations,” within the first month of the translation into action of these Regulations.
One paragraph only need here be cited to emphasize the bearing and import of these remarks:—
“Les agents doivent se souvenir que les peines disciplinaires prévues par le règlement de discipline militaire ne sont applicables qu’aux recrutés militaires, uniquement pour des infractions contre la discipline, et dans les conditions spécialement prévues par le dit règlement.
“Elles ne sont applicables, sous aucune prétexte, aux serviteurs de l’État non militaire ni aux indigènes, que ceux-ci soient ou non en rébellion vis-à-vis de l’Etat.
“Ceux d’entre eux qui sont prévenus de délits ou crimes doivent être déférés aux Tribunaux compétents et jugés conformément aux lois.”
At neither W* nor Y* is any rubber worked. With my arrival in the Lulongo River, I was entering one of the most productive rubber districts of the Congo State, where the industry is said to be in a very flourishing condition. The Lulongo is formed by two great feeders—the Lopori and Maringa Rivers—which, after each a course of some 350 miles through a rich, forested country, well peopled by a tribe named Mongos, unite at Bassankusu, some 120 miles above where the Lulongo enters the Congo. The basins of these two rivers form the Concession known as the A.B.I.R., which has numerous stations, and a staff of fifty-eight Europeans engaged in exploiting the india-rubber industry, with head-quarters at Bassankusu. Two steamers belonging to the A.B.I.R. Company navigate the waterways of the Concession, taking up European goods and bringing down to Bassankusu the india-rubber, which is there transhipped on board a Government steamer which plies for this purpose between Coquilhatville and Bassankusu, a distance of probably 160 miles. The transport of all goods and agents of the A. B. I. R. Company, immediately these quit the Concession, is carried on exclusively by the steamers of the Congo Government, the freight and passage-money obtained being reckoned as part of the public revenue. I have no actual figures giving the annual output of india-rubber from the A.B.I.R. Concession, but it is unquestionably large, and may, in the case of a prosperous year, reach from 600 to 800 tons. The quality of the A.B.I.R. rubber is excellent, and it commands generally a high price on the European market, so that the value of its annual yield may probably be estimated at not less than 150,000l. The merchandise used by the Company consists of the usual class of Central African barter goods—cotton cloths of different quality, Sheffield cutlery, matchets, beads, and salt. The latter is keenly sought by the natives of all the interior of Africa. There is also a considerable import by the A.B.I.R. Company, I believe, of cap-guns, which are chiefly used in arming the sentinels—termed “forest guards”—who, in considerable numbers, are quartered on the native villages throughout the Concession to see that the picked men of each town bring in, with regularity, the fixed quantity of pure rubber required of them every fortnight. I have no means of ascertaining the number of this class of armed men employed by the A.B.I.R. Company, but I saw many of them when up the Lopori River, and the gun of one of these sentries—himself an Ngombe savage—had branded on the stock “Depôt 2210.” In addition to its numerous forest guards, armed with cap-guns, which, at close quarters, can be a very effective weapon, the A. B. I. R. Company has a fairly strong armament of rifles. These are limited to twenty-five rifles for the use of each factory. The two steamers, I believe, have also a similar armament.
The Secteur of Bongandanga, which was the only district of the A.B.I.R. Concession I visited, has three “factories,” so that the number of rifles permitted in that one district would be seventy-five. I do not know if any limits or what limits are imposed on the number of cartridges which are permitted for the defence of these factories. One of the largest Congo Concession Companies had, when I was on the Upper River, addressed a request to its Directors in Europe for a further supply of ball-cartridge. The Directors had met this demand by asking what had become of the 72,000 cartridges shipped some three years ago, to which a reply was sent to the effect that these had all been used in the production of india-rubber. I did not see this correspondence, and cannot vouch for the truth of the statement; but the officer who informed me that it had passed before his own eyes was one of the highest standing in the interior.
When at Stanley Pool in June I had seen in one of the Government stores at Léopoldville a number of cases of rifles marked A. B. I. R. awaiting transport up river in one of the Government vessels; and upon my return to that neighbourhood, I was told by a local functionary that 200 rifles had, in July, been so shipped for the needs of the Lomami Company.
The right of the various Concession Companies operating within the Congo State to employ armed men—whether these bear rifles or cap-guns—is regulated by Government enactments, which confer on these commercial Societies what are termed officially “rights of police” (“droits de police”). A Circular of the Governor-General dealing with this question, dated the 20th October, 1900, points out the limits within which this right may be exercised. Prior to the issue of this Circular (copy of which is attached—Inclosure 5),[17] the various Concession Companies would appear to have engaged in military operations on a somewhat extensive scale, and to have made war upon the natives on their own account. The Regulations this Circular provides, to insure the licensing of all arms, rifles, and cap-guns, do not seem to be strictly observed, for in several cases the sentries or forest guards I encountered on my journey up the Lulongo had no licence (Modèle C) of the kind required by the Circular; and in two cases I found them provided with arms of precision. That the extensive use of armed men in the pay of the so-called Trading Societies, or in the service of the Government, as a means to enforce the compliance with demands for india-rubber, had been very general up to a recent date, is not denied by any one I met on the Upper Congo.
In a conversation with a gentleman of experience on this question, our remarks turned upon the condition of the natives. He produced a disused diary, and in it, I found and copied the following entry:—