I 
 
 j Abstract of the 
 
 Report .°he Commission 
 
 r Enquiry into the 
 
 Administration of *« 
 
 Congo Free State 
 
 
 jlllliiiil 
 $B 565 563 
 
 By 
 
 George Watson Macalpine 
 
 Chairman of Committee of the 
 
 Baptist Missionary Society 
 
 With Notes and an Introduction 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY. By 
 
 JAS. CLARKE & CO., 13 and 14, Fleet Street, E.C., and 
 THE KINGSGATE PRESS, 4, Southampton Row, W.C 
 
 Price One Shilling 
 
GIFT OF 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/abstractofreportOObelgrich 
 
v„ 
 
 Abstract of the 
 
 Report of the Commission 
 
 OF Enquiry into the 
 
 Administration of the 
 
 CONGO FREE STATE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE WATSON MACALPINE 
 
 Chairman of Committee 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
 
 WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY. By 
 
 J AS. CLARKE & CO., 13 and 14, Fleet Street, E.C., and 
 THE KINGSGATE PRESS, 4, Southampton Row, W.C. 
 
\, 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 8vo, cloth, pp. viii + 46, with four charts, price 5s. 
 THE 
 
 DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 a study of the gospels, 
 By George Watson Macalpine. 
 
 Baptist Times: — "The style of the essay is clear, virile, and 
 satisfying. . . . The charts are the chief matter, of which the brief 
 text is an elucidation. They contain a most useful and carefully 
 compiled outline harmony of the Gospels, that every student, 
 learned or simple, will be glad to have to hand. . . . Mr. 
 Macalpine has made, within his own severe limitations, a direct 
 and independent study of the Gospels which will make all 
 Christian readers his debtors." 
 
 United Free Church Magazine: — "Mr. Macalpine's study of the 
 Gospels is a work of wonderful patience and ingenuity, and brings 
 out a great many interesting facts in the structure and relations of 
 the evangelic records." 
 
 British Weekly : — " Mr. Macalpine has brought out very vividly 
 the proportions of Christ's ministry on earth. . . . The book is of 
 real interest and suggestiveness at several points to readers of the 
 Gospels." 
 
 Methodist 'Recorder: — "Deserves the attention of all students of 
 the life of Christ. . . Evidences of intelligent, first-hand study of 
 the Gospels abound in this interesting book." 
 
 Examiner: — "An interesting essay on the chronology of the life 
 of Christ. . . The charts constitute the essence of the book, and 
 should prove a valuable help to students of the New Testament." 
 
 Sunday School Chronicle: — "The charts, which give a bird's- 
 eye view of the whole life of Christ, as recorded in the Four 
 Gospels, ^re the out'conie,' of •* original study in connection with 
 Bible-class work, and they, areriytost suggestive and valuable." 
 
 -S'^r^'.j^/wizw ,'->'-''^ Tjhis, valuable*. worTc displays ample evidence of 
 thought and rese^ch." • — * «' * . ' >■ • 
 
 Of all Booksellers. 
 
 London: HENRY FROWDE, Oxford University Press, 
 Amen Corner. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 Abstract of the Report: — 
 
 Letter of the Secretaires Gdneraux 16 
 
 Preliminary Statements 17 
 
 Special Subjects dealt with : — 
 
 I. The Land System and Freedom of Commerce . . . 22 
 II. Taxation — Justification of a Labour Tax — System previous 
 to the Law of November i8th, 1903 — The Law of 
 November i8th, 1903 — Examination of the Various 
 Imposts : {A) Ground Nuts ; {B) Victuals ; (C) Forced 
 Labour : {a) Woodcutting, {b) Work at the Stations, 
 {c) Canoeing, {d) Portage ; {D) Products of the Domaine-. 
 {a) Copal, {b) India-rubber — Compulsion : (i) Constraint 
 as exercised by the White Man, (2) Sentinels — General 
 Remarks on Taxation ...... 25-44 
 
 III. Military Expeditions: (i) of the State, (2) of the Com- 
 
 panies — Mutilations 45 
 
 IV. The Concessions 52 
 
 V. Depopulation . • S7 
 
 VI. Adopted Children : (i) State Colonies, (2) Children adopted 
 
 by the Missions 60 
 
 VII. Recruiting: (i) Soldiers, (2) Workmen . . . .64 
 
 VIII. Administration of Justice 71 
 
 Concluding Remarks 76 
 
 Decree Constituting New Commission 79 
 
 Additional Note A— Character of the Negro . . . .80 
 „ „ B — Taxation •83 
 
 366504 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 'T^HIS little piece of work was undertaken for the informa- 
 •*• tion of the Western Sub- Committee of the Baptist 
 Missionary Society, which specially controls the Congo 
 Mission. It was proposed originally to make a brief summary 
 of the report of the Commissioners, but it soon became 
 apparent that the report did not lend itself to such treatment 
 The document is one of supreme and even tragic interest, and 
 the paragraphs are so closely packed with valuable material 
 that they demand more detailed treatment. While, therefore, 
 the aibstract does not amount to a translation, it is in some 
 places very full, and no section of the report is unrepresented. 
 It appeared im'portant that the statements of the report 
 should be illustrated by a presentation of some of the facts. 
 Consul Casement's report was available for this purpose, and 
 has been freely used But I have to thank the missionaries, 
 both of the Baptist Missionary Society and the Congo Balolo 
 Mission, for their co-operation. Much of the material of the 
 notes appended to the abstract has been supplied by them. 
 I have also to express my acknowledgments to Mr. Morel for 
 the use of similar material, which he had already collected 
 in the columns of the Official Organ of the Congo Reform 
 Association for the month of December last 
 
 May it please God to use this pamphlet in some small 
 measure for the enfranchisement of a sorely oppressed people ! 
 
 Broad Oak, Accrington, G. W. M. 
 
 January^ 1906. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ON the 23rd of July, 1904, the King of the Belgians ap- 
 pointed a Commission to enquire into the administra- 
 tion of the Congo Free State, on which serious strictures 
 had been passed in various quarters. The members 
 were Dr. Edward Janssens, Advocate-General of the Court 
 of Cassation at Brussels ; Baron Nisco, President of the Court 
 of Appeal at Boma ; and M. de Schumacher, a Swiss Jurist. 
 The composition of the Commission was a sufficient guarantee 
 that the administration of the State would be looked at 
 through friendly eyes, and that her interests would! not suffer 
 from prejudice on the part of her judges. The Commis- 
 sioners arrived at Boma on the 5th of October, 1904, and 
 spent four and a half months in Africa. Although they re- 
 turned to Belgium in the month of March, 1905, their report 
 was not issued until the 30th of October. When at last it 
 appeared it aroused deep and even painful interest It has by 
 no means given universal satisfaction. It is whispered that 
 serious displeasure has been expressed with the Commissioners 
 in high quarters in Belgium. They have aroused intense re- 
 sentment on the part of those interested in Catholic missions 
 in that country, on account of the trenchant criticisms of their 
 work wlhich appear in the report. The whole of the November 
 number of their organ, Le Mouvement des Missions Catholiques 
 au Congo, is given up to the discussion of this question, and 
 the Commissioners are charged with playing into the hands 
 of the anti-clerical party and of the Protestant missionaries. 
 On the other hand, the critics of the Congo Free State in this 
 country do not appear to be satisfied with the statements of 
 the report, and are especially dissatisfied with its recommenda- 
 tions. 
 
,rf^j'-:; : 
 
 I. The Commissioners have obviously carried out their 
 task with care, and during the ten weeks which they spent on 
 the Congo they gave themselves to the difficult work in 
 hand with the utmost devotion. It is remarkable how much 
 they accomplished in so short a time. They have mastered 
 the conditions of native life in the areas which they visited, 
 though they may be too sanguine in their conclusions in re- 
 gard to the districts which they have not seen. It may be 
 that their language is not always sufficiently strong — that they 
 have spoken of " grave abuses " when they meant " most 
 diabolical cruelties" — and that they have sometimes ex- 
 pressed, without sufficient reason, the pious hope that things 
 are not quite so bad now as they have been. The gravest 
 criticism, however, to which the report has given rise is, that 
 the details of the evidence have not been appended, 
 for general statements cannot possibly convey to the 
 mind the impression which the facts themselves produce. 
 It must not be taken for granted that the Commissioners 
 are themselves responsible for the suppression of the 
 evidence. 
 
 Fortunately we are able to supply many of the facts which 
 have 'been withheld. In the summer of 1903 Mr. R. Casement 
 H.M. Consul at Boma, took a journey into the interior of the 
 Congo Free State, in order to see for himself the state of 
 affairs. His report is pubHshed in the *' White Book," Africa^ 
 No. I (1904), and there is scarcely a single paragraph in the 
 report of the Commissioners which is not illustrated by that 
 of the Consul. Indeed, there are many sections of the Com- 
 missioners' report which migfht have been written in Europe 
 from a simple perusal of the British " White Book." Again, 
 we have the testimonies of the missionaries, some of which 
 have been recently published in the Official Organ of the Congo 
 Reform Association. It should be remarked that the evidence 
 which comes to us from these various sources is remarkably 
 accordant, and in the notes which accompany the abstract of 
 the Commissioners' report in the following pages, only isolated 
 
instances have been selected from many others which entirely 
 confirm them. 
 
 Thus the Commissioners have drawn, without fear and 
 without favour, the broad outlines of a picture, the details 
 of which we are able to fill in from other sources. It is not 
 astonishing that on this picture there should be some bright 
 spots, and that the Commissioners should speak with appre- 
 ciation of much that has been accomphshed by the State. 
 All are agreed that works of public utility have been carried 
 out, that the Arab slave trade has been aboHshed, that many 
 of the cruel native customs have been put down, and that at 
 present there are some portions of the State in which security 
 reigns, justice is more or less adequately administered and the 
 lot of the people is much happier than it was under the old 
 regime. But in other portions the picture is indeed a gloomy 
 one. As we look at its detailed statements, the particular 
 acts of atrocity which have filtered through from time to time 
 seem to recede into the backgroimd, and we see a whole nation 
 groaning under an intolerable burden which is crushing out its 
 very existence. Deprived of their land and of its natural 
 products, the people are compelled to labour for the enrich- 
 ment of their new masters ; a tax in labour is imposed upon 
 them, limited nominally to 40 hours per month, but which 
 frequently, in actual practice, absorbs almost the whole of their 
 time. The women, whose lot was hard enough before, are con- 
 demned in a tale of work for the army and for the posts 
 so heavy that their lives are not worth living. They are 
 compelled to furnish large quantities of provisions at one-fifth 
 of the market price, and they have frequently to carry them 
 long distances to deliver them to the stations. The villages 
 have been despoiled of their small cattle and fowls by the 
 exorbitant demands of their white oppressors. Should the 
 imposts come short, the chiefs, hitherto held in honour by 
 their people, find themselves working in the slave-gang, con- 
 fined in prison, or suffering the penalty of the chicoite. 
 
 These are, however, the minor ills of life, to which those 
 
lO 
 
 are subjected who still have the good fortune to live in a 
 district where rubber is not produced. In the rubber dis- 
 tricts the state of affairs is much worse. The men are driven 
 from their homes into the forest, where they lead a miserable 
 existence, living in improvised shelters, lacking the nourish- 
 ment to which they are accustomed, deprived of their wives, 
 and exposed to the inclemency of the atmosphere and the 
 attacks of wild beasts. When he makes his fortnightly 
 journey to the post for the delivery of the product, the col- 
 lector of rubber may, should he have been successful, receive 
 the handsome remuneration of ^d. to id. per day; but in 
 the event of his having failed to find a free-flowing vine and to 
 have secured the quantity demanded, his remuneration will 
 be the prison, the chicottCy or, as has frequently happened, a 
 bullet may put an end to his miserable existence. These men 
 are kept to their work by the armed sentries who are installed 
 in their villages, and who appropriate their food and their 
 women ; and they are driven to the post in gangs like slaves 
 when the day comes for the delivery of the rubber. Some- 
 times the penalty for shortage may take a different form, and 
 their wives, whatever their condition, may be taken from them 
 and confined, with insufficient food, in the filthy maisons des 
 otages of the station. 
 
 2. The recommendations of the Commissioners, while they 
 may not be especially drastic, will, if they are carried out, make 
 the Congo Free State a quite different place to live in. A 
 revision of the land laws, the limitation of the burden of taxa- 
 tion, the suppression of sentinels, the withdrawal of the right 
 of compulsion from commercial companies, and the en- 
 franchisement of tribunals from administrative domination — 
 an instahnent of reform which, in the opinion of the Com- 
 mission, might be granted at once — would alone work 
 wonders. Unfortunately, there are no signs that immediate 
 steps are being taken to secure these reforms. On a recom- 
 mendation of the Secretaires Gkneraux (which does not appear 
 to have originated with the Commissioners) a fresh Commis- 
 
II 
 
 sion has been appointed to study the report under discussion, 
 to formulate the proposals, and to seek practical methods for 
 their realisation ; thus a matter of the utmost urgency is being 
 subjected to further delay, and even a cursory glance at the 
 composition of the new Commission does not inspire much 
 hope as to the result of their labours. 
 
 The gravest factor in the situation is the immense 
 pecuniary interest of the State in those undertakings where 
 the abuses are the most serious. It holds one half the shares 
 in some of the commercial companies against which heinous 
 excesses have been proved ; but in the areas exploited by 
 these, the state of affairs is in no way worse than it is in the 
 Domaine de la Couronne, the revenues of which are not 
 accounted for publicly, and are said to go to King Leopold 11.^ 
 Herein lies the greatest stumbling-block in the way of reform. 
 It seems impossible to hope for much amelioration of the lot 
 of the native whilst the administration rests with the present 
 rulers. 
 
 But the Commissioners might justly have gone much 
 further than they have done. They have been draAvn from 
 the straight path by the enunciation of certain principles for 
 which they seem to have acquired a peculiar fondness, and 
 which may be stated as follows: — 
 
 {a) All vacant lands and the products thereof are the 
 property of the State. 
 
 * In a book which has been published since the text was in type, 
 M. Felicien Cattier, a Professor in the University of Brussels, deals 
 with the revenues of the Domaine de la Couronne. He estimates 
 them at a minimum of 70 millions of francs in ten years, and 
 shows, in great detail, how some of the money has been expended. 
 In the two arrondissements to which his researches have been limited 
 on account of the costliness of the enquiry, he has traced purchases 
 of estate to the value of over i8:| millions of francs. He indicates 
 other uses to which the funds have been devoted, notably the con- 
 struction of the Palace of Lacken, at a cost (when completed) of 30 
 millions of francs ; and that of the Arcade of the Cinquantenaire at 
 Brussels, which is intended to celebrate fifty years of Belgian in- 
 
 dependence. 
 
12 
 
 (d) A tax imposed upon the people in the interests of 
 the State is justifiable. 
 
 {c) As the negro has no property, the only tax that can 
 be imposed upon him is a tax in labour. This last 
 proposition they propound the more readily because 
 they regard the native as naturally lazy, and they 
 think it will do him good to be compelled to work. 
 
 The fabric which they have built upon this basis might 
 have taken an entirely different form, if the Commissioners 
 had stopped for a moment to consider what is meant by the 
 State. They seem to take it for granted that the State in- 
 cludes only those to whom the products of the domain are at 
 present going. If that be so, then the State in this case is 
 not the people of the Congo Free State " united into one body 
 politic," but consists simply of their ruler or rulers, together 
 with the capitalists who are associated with them. If the 
 Commissioners had interpreted these propositions to mean 
 that the land should be exploited in the interests of the 
 people, there would be less room for criticism, but they are 
 formulated in support of the present regime on the Congo, by 
 which the people are subjected to a tax in laibour in order 
 that the product of the domain may be collected for the en- 
 richment of their taskmasters; and of the immense sums 
 raised by taxation in the Congo Free State, only a very small 
 percentage is appropriated to public works or to an administra- 
 tion from which the native derives benefit. 
 
 The position at present is that the people are subjected to 
 a tax so enormous, that in many cases almost the whole of their 
 time and energy is absorbed in satisfying its requirements. In 
 order to keep them to their task and secure the levying of this 
 impost, a large native army is necessary. Consul Casement 
 estimates that there are not less than 18,000 men with the 
 colours, and that there is a further contingent of village 
 sentries of at least 10,000. The Commissioners seem to take 
 it for granted, not only that the people should be compelled 
 
13 
 
 to provide supplies for this immense standing army and for 
 the still greater body of workmen which the State employs^ 
 but that it has the right to exploit them in the private interests 
 of the rulers themselves, or to hand them over to the con- 
 cessionaire companies, who are permitted to levy the tax 
 imposed by the State for their own profit. In this they are 
 scarcely consistent, for in section i6o they lay it down clearly 
 that " this (labour) tax should, like all other taxes, make a 
 demand on the worker very small in proportion to his total 
 activities, should be Hmited to the ends of Government, pro- 
 portionate to the beneiit conferred on the contributors and 
 consistent with the freedom of the individual." With this 
 statement all will agree, but the necessary corollary is that the 
 concessionaire companies should be deprived! of their right to 
 impose a labour tax upon the natives, and that even the rulers 
 of the State itself should not be permitted to tax them for 
 their own private profit This is the one reform which the 
 Commissioners do not suggest, but which, if it were carried 
 out, would strike at the root of almost every abuse that exists 
 on the Congo to-day. 
 
 From the evidence of the Commissioners it is clear that 
 a tax in labour is in itself a grave injustice, and, while they in- 
 sist on the fact that it is necessary, there seems to be ample 
 proof that a vigorous and profitable trade might be developed 
 without recourse to forced labour. There is nothing clearer 
 than that many tribes are by nature keen traders, and every- 
 where the native can be induced to work when he is kindly 
 treated and adequately remunerated; but however this may 
 be, it seems perfectly clear that the State has no right what- 
 ever to hand over the resources of the country for the profit 
 of private individuals. The only satisfactory solution of the 
 grave problem of the Congo Free State is the restitution to the 
 people of their land, their forests, and the enjoyment of the 
 fruits of their labour ; to seek by the ordinary methods of trade 
 to secure what is now attained by the reduction of the whole 
 nation to slavery ; and to impose a tax, for the purposes of 
 
14 
 
 administration only, which shall, wherever possible, be in the 
 currency of the country, and which shall, in no case, take the 
 form of labour. 
 
 One thing- more is made clear in the report, viz. : that 
 the only trusted friends of the native are the Evangelical 
 missionaries. It is they alone who have any interest in the 
 moral or temporal well-being of the people, and it is to them 
 they appeal in case of wrong. Wherever the Protestant 
 missionary is established, the trader realises that he is under 
 the eye of one who has the welfare of the native at heart. 
 Whatever, therefore, the result of the publication of the report 
 may be, it ought to stimulate the Protestant Churches of Great 
 Britain and of Europe to further efforts on behalf of the negro, 
 and to secure that in the immense areas of the Congo Free 
 State which have not yet been visited by the missionary, 
 missions shall be established in the interests alike of the 
 material and spiritual well-being of the natives. To this end 
 the co-operation of H.M. Government is necessary, for the free 
 right of entry which Evangelical societies enjoy under the 
 Berlin Treaty has recently been withheld by the State. 
 
Abstract of the 
 
 Report of the Commission 
 
 OF Enquiry. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE* 
 
 REPORT TO THE KING-SOVEREIGN. 
 
 " Sire 
 
 "We have the honour of bringing to the notice of 
 your Majesty the Report which the Commission, charged 
 with an enquiry in the territories of the State, addressed 
 to the Government on October 30th, 1905. 
 
 "This Report has been sent for the inspection of the 
 Governor-General. 
 
 " On the other hand, we have the honour to suggest to 
 your Majesty the nomination of a Commission for the 
 study of the diverse suggestions of the Commission of 
 Enquiry. If your Majesty should agree to our proposal, 
 we beg you to have the goodness to append your signature 
 to the accompanying decree naming the members of this 
 Commission. 
 
 "We are, with the profoundest respect, 
 
 " Sire, 
 
 "The most humble, obedient and faithful 
 
 servants and subjects of your Majesty." 
 
 Chevalier de Cuvelier. 
 H. Droogmans. 
 
 LlEBRECHTS. 
 
 Brussels, 31s/ October^ 1905. 
 
Note. — The figures in the margin indicate the page in the 
 Bulletin Officiel de l'Etat In dependant du Congo for 
 Sept.-Oct., 190J, in which the Report of the Commission 
 appears. They are referred to in the Notes appended hereto 
 as Sections. 
 
 REPORT OF THE COMMISSION OF ENQUIRY 
 
 To the Secretaire (T Etat de V£tat Independant 
 du Congo, 
 
 IN pursuance of the instructions of Article 5 of the decree of 
 23rd July, 1904, the Commissioners report the results of 
 their enquiry on the Congo. 
 The object of the mission was to enquire whether, in some 
 portions of the territory, the natives have been badly treated, 
 either by individuals or by the agents of the State; to make sug- 
 gestions for the amelioration of their condition, and, where the 
 enquiry had shown that abuses exist, to indicate the best mode 
 of putting an end to these, having regard to the well-being of 
 the inhabitants and the good government of the territories. 
 
 The Commission was armed with full powers, and was left 136 
 without obstruction to act on its own initiative. Full powers 
 were conferred to call witnesses, compulsorily if necessary, and 
 the witnesses were secured against any detriment on account 
 of their testimony. 
 
 The Commission left Antwerp on September 15th, and 
 arrived at Boma on October 5th, 1904. 
 
 The Governor-General at once issued Instructions to all his 137 
 subordinate officers, both civil and military, to lend effectual 
 aid to the Commissioners. All functionaries and agents of the 
 State were instructed to appear before the Commission if re- 
 quired, and all demands on the part of the Commission for the 
 production of administrative or judicial documents relating to 
 their mission were to be complied with. At the same time, the 138 
 Procureur d'Etat issued a circular ordering the prompt repres- 
 sion of all attempts to suborn witnesses,^ and of attacks on their 
 person or goods. 
 
 ^ Notable witnesses before the Commission at Baringa have been 
 seized and transported, ostensibly for shortness of rubber. 
 
 On the representation of the Commission after their Session at 
 Bolobo the State Authorities arrested a notorious officer on a charge 
 
iS 
 
 The Commissioners acknowledg-e the hearty and often spon- 
 taneous co-operation of the oflicers of the State, the agents of 
 concessionaire companies, and the missionaries of all denomina- 
 tions. 
 
 They remained at Boma until October 23rd. They issued 
 
 139 to all the substitutes of the Procureur a schedule of enquiries 
 on the maltreatment of the natives which had come under their 
 notice, the prosecutions undertaken and their result, the rate of 
 imposition, the duration of the work required of each native 
 and the methods of compulsion resorted to, the application of 
 the decree of November i8th, 1903, on imposts, the remunera- 
 tion of the natives, military expeditions, the system of forest 
 guards, on laws and regulations relative to fire-arms, the engage- 
 ment of soldiers and workmen, together with any matter of 
 general interest bearing on their mission. They visited the 
 school colony, the prison, the native hospital, the military camp, 
 and the workmen's village. 
 
 Having visited Matadi and Leopoldville, they embarked on 
 November ist and sailed up river, calling at Bolobo, where they 
 took the evidence of witnesses from Lake Leopold II, and at 
 Lukolela; thence they went to Lake Tumba, Coquilhatviile, etc. 
 
 140 On December ist they sailed up the Lulonga and its tributaries, 
 and spent over a month in this district. They left Lulonga on 
 January 5th, and visited Monsembi, New Antwerp, Upoto, 
 Yakusu, and Stanley-ville. 
 
 On January 26th they set out on their return journey, arriving 
 at Boma on February 13th, where they remained until February 
 2 ist, when they sailed for Europe. 
 
 The Commission received on the Congo the declarations of 
 Magistrates, Officers, Directors and Agents of Companies, 
 Protestant and Catholic Missionaries, and above all, natives. 
 
 By sitting eight hours per day, the Commissioners were 
 able to take and record the depositions of some hundreds of 
 witnesses, lliey heard all who had complaints to make or 
 information to offer, and they summoned all who were likely 
 to throw light on their mission; wherever they were compelled 
 
 141 to halt, they interrogated the wage-earners and noted every point 
 of interest. They entered neighbouring villages and interviewed 
 the inhabitants, unescorted except by their interpreters. They 
 visited hospitals, prisons, school colonies, and at the mission 
 stations inspected the schools, dormitories, workshops, planta- 
 tions, etc. 
 
 of having been guilty of atrocities in the Domaine de la Couronne. 
 Some of the natives who had given evidence before the Commission 
 were required to go to Boma for the purposes of the trial. They were 
 kept there for eight months in great misery, and several of them 
 died. Four were still detained at Boma on October 14th, 1905, and 
 one of them had been transported in irons to another district. (See 
 Official Organ of the Congo Reform Association for December, 1905, 
 pp. 17, 18.) 
 
19 
 
 From November ist, on their departure for the Upper River, 
 the enquiry was open to the public. The declarations of the 
 natives were translated by competent native interpreters, and 
 were checked by missionaries or by ag^ents of the State. The 142 
 declarations of Protestant missionaries were made in English 
 for the most part, the witnesses having opportunity to revise 
 them. All rectifications desired were made before signature, 
 and frequently evidence given in French was translated into 
 English, for the purpose of eliciting observations from those 
 present. 
 
 The Commission cannot refrain from comparing the state 143 
 of affairs now with what it was formerly, as indicated in the 
 narratives of explorers. In districts that twenty-five years ago 
 were plunged in the deepest barbarism, and which white men 
 traversed with the utmost diflficulty and at great risk, where 
 the tribes were decimated by Arab raids and markets were 
 held for the sale of human flesh, where funerals were celebrated 
 by atrocious hecatombs of slaves and the burying alive of 
 widows — ^in this region a State has been organised in a mar- 
 vellously short time, which has introduced into the heart of 
 Africa the benefits of civilization. To-day security reigns, and 
 the white man, if his intentions are not hostile, may move about 
 without escort. ^ The slave trade has disappeared, '■^ cannibalism, 
 severely repressed, hides itself in corners; and human sacrifice 
 has become rare. Gay towns enliven the river banks, and 144 
 Matadi and Leopoldville remind one of European cities. The 
 
 ^This remark applies only to the riverine towns. Few if any of 
 the officials or rubber agents can venture inland without an armed 
 escort. There, even the movements of the missionaries have been 
 more restricted in recent years on account of the suspicion with which 
 every white man is now regarded by the natives. The district 
 exploited by the SocUte Anversoise du Commerce au Congo in the 
 basin of the Mongala has been practically closed, even to their pacific 
 itineraries, for some time past. 
 
 "This remark refers only to the suppression of raids for slaves by 
 the Arabs, and to the regular slave-markets. Domestic slavery is 
 still common amongst the tribes of the Upper Congo except where 
 the natives are in touch with the missionaries. Slaves are bought and 
 sold every day in many districts, and this fact is well known to the 
 Government. If a slave claims his freedom, the authorities will put 
 no difficulty in the way, and in the event of his having been indentured 
 to the State they will restore him to his own village, but otherwise 
 they do not interfere. 
 
 Sometimes the Government has a direct and very grave responsi- 
 bility in this matter. Consul Casement tells of a town near Coquil- 
 hatville where, on account of the failure to supply fowls, an armed 
 expedition of thirty men appeared, requisitioned twenty-five men for 
 the State, and imposed a further fine of 55,000 brass rods (;^iio). 
 "This sum they had been forced to pay, and as they had no other 
 means of raising so large a sum they had, many of them, been com- 
 pelled to sell their children and their wives." Details are then given. 
 [See Africa, No. i (1904), pp. 39, 40.] 
 
railway of the Cataracts, constructed over the most uneven 
 ground, that of the Grands-Lacs, running through the very 
 heart of the equatorial forest, the eighty steamers that 
 navigate the Congo and its affluents, a postal service, a 
 telegraph line of 750 miles, hospitals, etc., give the 
 impression of a country long since subjected to European civi- 
 lization. The State has solved in an effective fashion the pro- 
 blem of the occupation and administration of its vast territory. 
 The Government at Boma is in uninterrupted communication 
 
 145 with the farthest outposts, and makes its controlling influence 
 strongly felt. The central machinery of the Congo State acts 
 with rapidity and precision, without arrest and without shock. 
 The administration of justice is praiseworthy, and its glory is 
 the popularity of the Magistracy among the coloured population. 
 A considerable collateral work has been done by missionaries 
 of all creeds, whose chapels, schools and workshops, are built 
 in many places. 
 
 But this spectacle has not turned the Commission aside from 
 pursuing the object of its mission. It has made a searching 
 enquiry into the ills of the natives. The report of its arrival 
 spread among the blacks with remarkable rapidity, and wit- 
 nesses have not been lacking, whole villages having presented 
 themselves to expound their grievances and their hopes. 
 
 146 Their field of observation has not been limited to the com- 
 paratively small area that they have traversed, but they have 
 formed an opinion on the condition of the natives throughout the 
 whole of the State; ^ for the legal records of prosecutions, the 
 political reports, official correspondence, reports of magistrates, 
 and copies of the letters of commercial companies, have fur- 
 nished the Commission with information even more valuable 
 than that of the witnesses. 
 
 The native witnesses were convinced that the maintenance 
 or suppression of certain forms of statute labour (prestations), 
 specially in india-rubber, depended upon the nature of their 
 testimony. It would be going too far to call the native a liar, 
 but his notion of the truth differs from ours. Truth for the 
 native is not what is or has been, but what ought to be — what 
 he wishes, or what he thinks you desire or expect of him. He 
 has only a vague notion of time, and cannot localise past events; 
 
 ^It is very much to be feared that the Commission has not had 
 before it evidence of the actual state of affairs in many districts. At 
 Upoto, for example, official notice of the sitting of the Commission 
 was only received by the missionaries on the morning of the day on 
 which it was held at Lisala. There was no opportunity of summon- 
 ing witnesses from the far interior, to give evidence concerning 
 oppression and the atrocities which have been committed in the Con- 
 cession of the SociHe Anversoise du Commerce au Congo. 
 
 The information put before the Commission in regard to certain 
 important districts seems mainly to have been confined to that of 
 Messrs. Weeks and Scrivener, who had made journeys into the 
 interior from Lukolela and Bolobo. 
 
21 
 
 he makes extraordinary mistakes in figures/ and after a time 147 
 he confounds what he has himself seen with what has been told 
 him; untiring patience is necessary to evolve the truth from his 
 testimony. 
 
 It is impossible to transcribe or even to summarise the hun- 
 dreds of depositions taken. ^ The most minute enquiries have not 
 thrown light on certain facts brought to the knowledge of the 
 Commission, some of which are of long standing. Some of the 
 accused are dead, others have returned to Europe, and publicity 
 would prejudice some who have no means of defence or explana- 
 tion. Moreover, the Commission has regarded its mission as 
 one of enquiry into the general condition of the natives, its 
 causes and remedies, rather than an examination of isolated 
 cases of wrong. Whilst, therefore, it has often established 148 
 facts which would have led to convictions, it has examined them 
 mainly with a view to a general opinion. It has indicated some 
 of these facts to the proper authority with a view to the prose- 
 cution of the culprits. It has, moreover, limited its enquiries 
 to the interests of the native populations, to the exclusion of 
 those of the European residents. 
 
 Criticism bears mainly on the following points : — • 149 
 
 1. The land legislation of the State and freedom of com- 
 
 merce. 
 
 2. The system of taxing in labour, and the abuses which 
 
 follow the exercise of compulsion. 
 
 3. Military expeditions, the taking of hostages, mal- 
 
 treatment, mutilations, etc. 
 
 4. The Concessionaire System. 
 
 5. Depopulation and its causes. 
 
 6. The guardianship exercised by the State or by Catho- 
 
 lic missions over abandoned children. 
 
 7. The recruiting of soldiers and workers. 
 
 8. The administration of justice. 
 
 * See Additional Note A — ^Character of the Negro, page 80. 
 
 " The publication of the evidence of the witnesses and of all the 
 administrative and judicial records should be insisted on. The state- 
 ments of the Commissioners are highly summarised. They produce 
 upon the mind a very strong impression of the iniquitous maladminis- 
 tration of some portions of the territory of the Congfo Free State ; but 
 if the facts upon which they are based were made known, this impres- 
 sion would be very much intensified. The Report of Consul Case- 
 ment largely contains the proof of the statements of the Commis- 
 sioners, and should be read in conjunction with their report. (See 
 Introduction.) 
 
22 
 
 I.-THE LAND SYSTEM AND FREEDOM OF 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 When the State was founded, there was no private property 
 in land, apart from the few acres belonging to commercial com- 
 panies at the mouth of the river or at Boma. The numerous 
 communities who dwelt on the vast territory under their chiefs, 
 cultivated only a trifling portion of the land, though they utilised, 
 in a measure, the surrounding country. One of the first con- 
 150 cerns of the State was to estabHsh a land system. While it 
 respected the rights acquired by private companies, it decreed 
 that all vacant land should belong to the State, that occupied 
 by the natives remaining subject to local custom and usage. 
 No contract with the natives for the acquisition of land would be 
 recognised by the State. (Decrees of ist July, 1885, and 17th 
 September, 1886.) 
 
 Without contesting the legitimacy of the appropriation of 
 vacant lands by the State, the Commission holds that the posi- 
 tion of the native populations, tinder the land system, depends 
 entirely on the meaning attached to the words " occupied 
 lands," " vacant lands "; and that if it wishes to prevent the 
 principle of its lordship over vacant lands from being abused, the 
 55^ State must put its agents on their guard against a too-restricted 
 interpretation of the term. In default of legal definition (and 
 none exists), it seems to be generally agreed on the Congo that 
 land ** occupied by the natives," is limited to that on which 
 they have erected their villages, or which they have brought 
 under cultivation.^ Moreover, their right to dispose of the pro- 
 ducts of the soil is limited to that enjoyed before the constitu- 
 tion of the State. 
 
 As the greater portion of the land on the Congo is not under 
 cultivation, this interpretation gives the State absolute and ex- 
 152 elusive property in almost all the land, with the result that it 
 is free to dispose of all the products of the soil, to prosecute 
 as a thief anyone who gathers any produce, as receiver him who 
 buys it, and to forbid anyone to settle on the greater portion 
 of the territory; it greatly restricts the area of activity of the 
 hative; rigorously applied, it prevents all expansion of the life 
 of the native. It not only prohibits the removal of villages, 
 but the native has even been forbidden to leave his village for a 
 
 ' Much of the surrounding country appears to have been under 
 definite ownership, and to have descended from generation to genera- 
 tion. (See remarks of the Rev. John Whitehead in the Official 
 Organ of the Congo Reform Association for December, 1905, page 7.) 
 
23 
 
 brief visit without a special permit; otherwise he exposes himself 
 to arrest, to forcible return, and to punishment. Some have 
 soug^ht to justify these prohibitions on the ground of the rights 
 of property. 
 
 It should be said at once that the native is not actually 
 treated with such rigour. Nearly everywhere he is free to enjoy 
 some of the products of the soil, notably the palm nut, ^ which 
 forms an important object of trade. But he is on tolerance, and 
 grave abuses may at any time arise through a strict applica- '53 
 tion of the principle. It follows that the State would do well, 
 •in extending its land legislation, to give a wide interpretation 
 to the laws of ist July, 1885, and 17th September, 1886, which 
 confirm the natives in the occupation of their lands. Meanwhile, 
 until the delimitation of the lands occupied by natives is com- 
 pleted, they should have the enjoyment of the zones about their 
 huts and fields, with liberty to dispose of the produce by trading 
 — a plan already adopted by the French Government, which de- 
 fines the area by decree of the Governor. In carrying out this 154 
 suggestion, the State need give themselves no concern regarding 
 the interests of the concessionaire companies, who are indeed 155 
 dependent for their existence on the favours of the State. 
 
 Freedom of Trade. — ^Before the constitution of the State the 
 main traffic of the natives was in ivory and slaves. These two 
 trades are now at an end. ^ In most of the villages, smiths, 
 potters and basket-makers are to be found, but trade in their 
 manufactures is inappreciable. There remain only the products 
 of the soil, which, apart from the rudimentary cultivation of the 
 native, which sufifices only for his own needs and the victualling 
 of the posts, are regarded as the property of the State or of the 156 
 concessionaire companies. Thus if freedom of trade were con- 
 ceded, in most places there would be nothing to trade with. The 
 modification in the land system already suggested, and the pro- 
 posals yet to be formulated, should, however, change this state 
 of things. 
 
 The introduction of money, already in use on the Lower 
 Congo, is desired alike by State agents, factors, missionaries, 
 and even the natives themselves.^ On the Upper Congo all 
 
 * At Lukolela the workmen of the State have been allowed by the 
 officers to take whatever they might require from the natives' palm 
 trees. Many of these were cut down without compensation for the 
 passage of the telegraph line, and the native was compelled to plant 
 cassava on the road. 
 
 ' A somewhat valuable trade might now be carried on by the 
 natives in ivory but for the laws which prohibit the hunting of the 
 elephant, etc., a prohibition from which they suffer further in the 
 devastation of their fields by these and other wild animals. 
 
 ' As a matter of fact, in most parts of the State a currency of 
 some sort exists. On the Upper River brass rods take the place of 
 cpin, and in some districts iron shokas, manufactured by the natives, 
 are in circulation. The native would be well satisfied to be paid in 
 these instead of in cloth and other merchandise which he does not 
 
24 * 
 
 payments to the native are in articles of exchangfe, the value 
 of which is fixed by the district commissioner or by the direc- 
 tors of commercial companies, and varies very much in different 
 districts. Moreover, the value of these articles is g^reatly de- 
 preciated in most native markets, so that the black, beingf com- 
 pelled to accept them at their nominal value in exchange for 
 all the products vv^hich he brings to the State or the company, 
 is often grievously wronged. In spite of the great difficulties 
 in the change of system, the commissioners feel themselves im- 
 157 pelled to recommend the gradual introduction of payment in 
 cash. 
 
 need. In some districts the riverine villages are required to supply 
 the shokas to the State, and are compelled to take cloth in return. 
 
 According to the report of Consul Casement, the currency in brass 
 rods is very much debased. The original recognised length of a rod 
 was 18 inches, but the average to-day cannot be more than 8 or 9 
 inches. The lengths vary in different districts, but the average in- 
 trinsic value of the rods cannot be more than one-half their nominal 
 value, which is twenty rods to one franc. [Report of H.M. Consul 
 at Boma, Africa, No. i (1904).] 
 
25 
 
 IL— TAXATION (IMPOSITIONS). 
 
 Most criticisms on the conduct of the State bear more or less 
 directly on the question of taxes, and specially on the labour 
 tax, which alone weig^hs heavily on the native. On the solution 
 of this problem, vi^hich is at once the most important and the 
 most complex, depends that of nearly all the rest. The prin- 
 ciple of the labour tax must first be examined, and then the 
 application of it which has been made. 
 
 Justification of a Labour Tax. — Everything- on the Congo is 
 dependent on native labour, whereas the native, by heredity and 
 by the general conditions of the country, has no disposition to 
 do more than is absolutely necessary for his subsistence. The 
 fecundity of the soil, the extent of the country and the fine 
 climate, reduce the necessity for effort to a minimum; a few 158 
 branches and leaves suffice for shelter; his clothing- is meagre; 
 fishing, hunting, and rudimentary culture supply his few needs; 
 his energies may be stimulated by the desire to procure arms, 
 a few ornaments, or a wife, but once these desires are satisfied, he 
 is happy in his idleness. Exceptions are found among the Kasai 
 and tribes formerly subjected to Arab dominion, where the habit 
 of work has been acquired, but as a rule no bait will induce the 
 native to continuous effort.^ Stanley had recourse to the Zanzi- 
 baris, the railway of the Cataracts was built by labour drawn 
 from Senegal and Sierra Leone; but it is impossible to depend 
 on imported labour for the development of the country, and it 159 
 is only by making work compulsory that its resources can be 
 developed, modern civilisation introduced, and the population 
 rescued from barbarism. But the only way to compel the 
 natives to work is to make labour a tax, and the indisj>ensable 
 co-operation of the native is the justification of this tax on the 
 Congo. 
 
 The principle is justified, not merely by the ordinary taxa- 
 tion of European citizens, but by the existence in nearly every 
 country in continental Europe of compulsory military service, 
 and in some, of the right of the State under certain circumstances 160 
 to forced labour. But labour is the only tax possible on the 
 Congo, and if the right of a State to tax its pKDpulation for the 
 requirements of its existence and development be conceded, the 
 right of the Congo State to require the only thing the natives 
 can give, viz. labour, follows. This tax should, like all other 
 taxes, make a demand on the worker very small in proportion 
 to his total activities; should be limited to the ends of Govern- 
 
 ' See Additional Note A— Character of the Negro, page 81. 
 
2 
 
 ment; proportioned to the benefit conferred on the contributors, 
 and consistent with the freedom of the individual. Subject to 
 these limitations, there is no room for criticism. On the other 
 hand, the oblig^ation to work, if free from the violent methods 
 i6i of compulsion hereafter to be exposed, becomes one of the most 
 effective agencies of civilisation. 
 
 The fatal tendency of the native to remain in his primitive 
 condition is proved by the devoted but vain efforts both of 
 Catholic and Protestant missions to uplift him. [An excep- 
 tion should be made in the region of the Cataracts, where the 
 Rev. (Dr.) Bentley has been installed for twenty-five years. 
 We have been informed that in this district the natives have 
 made real progress; they have learnt sundry handicrafts, and 
 have built, on their own initiative and at their own expense, 
 some brick houses and even a church.^] A law which imposes 
 upon the native light, regular work, is the only means of engen- 
 
 162 dering the habit. The principle may be readily abused and com- 
 pulsion may lead to excesses, but a wise legislation will avoid 
 the abuses by fixing strictly the limits of the tax and the means 
 of obtaining it, and by watching rigorously that these limits are 
 not overstepped. 
 
 System Previous to the Law of November !8tb, 1903, — The 
 State could not at once solve the difficult problem of taxation, 
 and was compelled at first to leave to its agents, often isolated 
 among savage peoples, to extract in their own fashion the re- 
 sources necessary for their subsistence and for the development 
 of the first stations. Sundry decrees were enacted in 1891-3 to 
 
 163 cover special cases. A decree of the King Sovereign dated De- 
 cember 5th, 1892, charging the Secretary of State to take all the 
 measures which he judged useful or necessary for the develop- 
 ment of the Domaine prive^ was assumed to empower the 
 Administration to demand forced labour from, the natives and 
 to delegate this right to companies, until the Court of Appeal 
 at Boma incidentally expressed the opinion (in 1899 and 1903) 
 that, in the then state of the law, no one could force the native 
 
 164 to work. The decree of November i8th, 1903, was therefore 
 enacted. 
 
 In the early days, each head of a post demanded from the 
 natives what imposts in work or in kind he thought fit. Later, 
 the rate of impost was fixed by the district Commissioners, to 
 whom the greatest latitude was accorded, with the result that 
 taxes varied greatly in different localities. The weight of india- 
 rubber per gatherer varied from 9 kilogrammes in Mongala, to 
 2 to 4 in different parts of the Province Orientale, while nothing 
 was required on the Lower Congo. Moreover, no control was 
 exercised over the agents to make them conform to the official 
 tables. Everything depended on the individual. A reasonable 
 man, reconciling the interests of the State or the company with 
 
 * Footnote in the Report of Commission. 
 
27 
 
 those of the native, could obtain much without resort to violence; 
 a considerable number, however, sought only to obtain the 
 larg-est possible amount in the least possible time, and their 
 demands were often excessive. This is not astonishing", for 
 those who fixed the tax often received a bonus on the product. 165 
 
 The native was paid for his work, but the rate of payment, 
 like that of the tax, was fixed by the agent. It is true that 
 the Government in 1896 prescribed that the remuneration of the 
 natives should not be less than the value of the work necessary 
 for gathering the product, and should be fixed by the district 
 Commissioners and approved by the Governor-General. These 
 instructions were only imperfectly carried out; the remuneration 166 
 of the native was often insufficient, and was sometimes paid in 
 goods which had no value in the region. 
 
 The same diversity regulated the methods of compulsion, 
 and in this report acts of violence, more or less grave, against 
 individuals or communities will be exposed. The Government 
 has from time to time sent out circulars to recall the agents to 
 a sense of their duty to treat the blacks with equity and 
 humanity, but more efficacious means have rarely been employed. 
 Infractions have seldom been brought to justice, though the 
 Courts at Boma have punished every illegal act, maltreatment 
 or abuse of the natives, which has been brought to their 
 cognisance.^ 
 
 The Law of November 18th, 1903.— The principle of this law 167 
 is as follows : 
 
 Every adult, able-bodied native is subjected to a tax in 
 labour for the State. This work is to be remunerated, and 
 must not exceed a total of forty effective hours per month. The 
 remuneration must not be less than the actual rate of wages in 
 the locality.^ The district Commissioners are to take a census 
 which shall be the basis of the list of impositions, and should in- 
 dicate by name those who are liable to contribute in each village. 
 The lists must be approved by the Governor General. 
 
 The Commissioners of the district will indicate on the lists 
 compiled by them the quantity of the different products corre- 
 sponding to the hours of work imposed, regard being had to 
 the conditions of work, such as the richness of the forest, its 
 distance from the village, method of collecting, etc.; they will 
 have the power to demand, in lieu of labour, the corresponding 
 quantity of the product for each native or group of natives or 168 
 of native villages (Art. 31). 
 
 The agent charged with the collection of the impost may 
 
 ' The truth of this statement is denied by several missionaries. 
 
 The notorious Lieutenant Massard, of whose guilt the Commis- 
 sioners seem to have entertained no doubt, has been acquitted at 
 Borna. The Public Prosecutor, however, seems to have appealed 
 against this decision. 
 
 ' See Additional Note B— Taxation, pages 84 ff. 
 
28 
 
 group individuals or villag-es for payment, but he must require 
 strict conformity to the lists and prosecute defaulting- chiefs 
 (Art. 33). The natives may purchase their freedom from taxa- 
 tion by delivering- to the State a prescribed quantity of the pro- 
 ducts of their fields or of their industry (Art. 34). In case of 
 refusal to pay in kind, in default pi movable or fixed property, 
 the collector may impose forced labour (Art. 54). 
 
 At the time of the Commissioner's inspection the law was 
 observed only in some districts. The demand of a maximum of 
 
 169 forty hours per month is certainly not excessive, having regard 
 to the fact that the labour is remunerated; but in the immense 
 majority of cases it is something other than work that is re- 
 quired, and the criterion of time disappears and is replaced by 
 an equation established by the district Commissioners, and 
 admitting of variation within infinite limits. 
 
 A circular of the Governor-General under date February 
 29th, 1904, informed the district Commissioner that the new 
 law must not only maintain, but continuously augment, the re- 
 sources of the Treasury. Did the Government mean by this an 
 addition to the list of contributors as the country was pacifically 
 
 170 penetrated? Probably the intention was to bring a greater 
 number of natives under contribution and so to secure the maxi- 
 mum result with a minimum of individual effort. It is true, 
 nevertheless, that its effect was to prevent the Commissioners 
 from reducing excessive impositions. As a matter of fact, many 
 were satisfied to confirm the previous rate of taxation. 
 
 The law fixes the remuneration for native work at the actual 
 rate of wages in the district. The principle of remuneration 
 has the great advantage, on the Congo, of making the native 
 understand the value of labour; but it is just that the pay should 
 be limited to the value of the manual labour, for the product 
 
 171 of the work is not generally his own property. The law makes 
 the local rate a minimum, but the circular of 29th February, 
 1904, seems to regard it as a maximum. 
 
 Finally, the law of i8th November, 1903, does not sufficiently 
 settle the question of compulsion. How is forced labour to be 
 imposed? Must the native be arrested, put in chains, and receive 
 corporal punishment? What is to be the duration of the deten- 
 tion ? To what work is the native to be compelled ? There are 
 plenty of circulars on the subject, which fix the maximum of 
 imprisonment at one month, but the matter is not with- 
 drawn from the decision of the agent. In other respects the 
 law requires to be supplemented, but, above all, care must be 
 taken that it is applied in its letter and in its spirit. The native 
 must, on completing forty hours per month, be free to dispose 
 of the rest of his time, payment must be such as the law pre- 
 
 172 scribes if it is to be an effectual encouragement to work, the 
 lists must be revised to make them agree with the legal re- 
 quirements, and the strict observation of these should be 
 assured. 
 
29 
 
 Examination of the Various Imposts. — The imposts may be 
 divided into several g^roups : — 
 
 A. — Taxation in g^round nuts. 
 
 B. — Taxation in victuals : chikwangue (manioc bread), 
 
 fish, grame, domestic animals. 
 C. — The different kinds of service (corvees) : wood-cutting, 
 
 work at the stations, paddling", portage. 
 D. — Gathering the products of the domain, copal and 
 
 india-rubber. 
 
 i4.— Ground Nuts (Arachides), 
 
 The natives in the district of the Cataracts only are taxed in 
 ground nuts. Since the decree of 1903 this impost has been re- 
 duced to a fourth, and complaints have ceased. But the pay 173 
 given to the natives leaves no profit to the State, and satisfaction 
 would be given and the income increased, by the substitution of 
 another tax,* however light. 
 
 B.— Imposition in Victuals. 
 
 Most of the operations required in the preparation of 
 Kwanga, or manioc bread, the principal item of native food, 
 fall upon the women. When it is ready, the natives convey 
 it to the nearest station, where it serves for the victualling of 
 the soldiers and workmen of the State. 
 
 This impost, like all the others, is paid for, and it is that 
 which the natives furnish most readily. It is work to which the 
 negro is accustomed, and, as it presses mainly on the women, ly^ 
 it falls in perfectly with native ideas. So, if the personnel 
 of the post is not too numerous and the demand is equally 
 spread over a sufficiently dense population, the overplus of work 
 imposed upon the toiling helpmeets of the black leads to no 
 recrimination. 
 
 It is quite otherwise in the neighbourhood of important 
 stations, where the provision of chikwangues becomes onerous. 
 The villages situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
 post being unequal to the task of victualling them, the tax is 
 aggravated by the compulsory labour of transport. Leopold- 
 ville, for example, has about 3,000 workmen and soldiers, and 
 grows daily. The region on which the burden of the main- 
 tenance of this establishment falls is not populous, the villages 
 are thinly scattered, and the late census shows a tendency to 
 decrease. The area of supply has, therefore, been extended, and 
 one village, situated 79 kilometres (50 miles) distant, now supplies 
 350 chikwangues. To equalise the burden, the region has been 
 divided into three zones, approximately concentric, with outside 175 
 radii of 30, 43, and 79 kilometres (19, 27, and 50 miles), respec- 
 
 ^ The natives of the district of the Cataracts prefer to pay the tax 
 in cash rather than in ground nuts. This tax, like the kwanga re- 
 ferred to in the next section, falls heavily on the women. 
 
30 
 
 tively. The work falls on the women; the tax is fixed 
 in proportion to their number, and each has to furnish 
 lo chikwangues every 4, 8, or 10 days, according to the zon^ 
 in which she resides. Often the actual number falls below, but 
 sometimes it rises above this figure, and the quota does not 
 always follow fluctuations in the population. 
 
 The objections to the system are obvious. There is an unani- 
 mous testimony to the heavy burden imposed on the women in 
 some villages by the incessancy of the demand, and to the 
 long journeys to which the natives are subjected. It has 
 been calculated that the manufacture of one kilogramme (2^ 
 lbs.) of manioc bread takes one hour, of which four-fifths fall 
 on the woman. ^ As one ration weighs, on an average, i^ kilos 
 
 176 (3^ lbs.), the women of the first zone give to the State about 
 100 hours of work per month, those of the second about 50, 
 those of the third 33. The demand on the women of the first 
 zone should, therefore, be materially reduced. 
 
 But the most painful side of this tax is its continuity. As 
 chikwangue keeps badly, the task is never done, and haunts 
 the woman continually, making her life a perfect drudgery. 
 
 But the gravest vice of the system is the long journeys im- 
 posed. It is unjustifiable that a contributor should have to 
 travel 150 kilometres (94 miles) to deliver the value of fr. 1.50 
 (is. 2^d.). ^ This remark is equally true if the full value of the 
 
 177 article is paid to the native. In accordance with his nature, the 
 negro devolves this forced labour of transit on one weaker than 
 himself, and it generally falls on the women, the children, and 
 the household slaves. This only aggravates the situation, for 
 this demand on their time, already taxed for their own sub- 
 sistence, prevents them from following other employments even 
 if they had the will, and results in the incontestable impoverish- 
 ment of the villages. Catholic and Protestant missionaries 
 alike at Leopoldville, testified to the general misery prevailing 
 in that district. In the words of one : "If this system, which 
 obliges the natives to support the 3,000 workmen of Leopold- 
 ville, should continue for another five years, the population of 
 
 ^The woman has to clear the ground, cultivate the land, plant 
 the cassava, clear the farm, dig the root, steep it, and make it into 
 kwanga; and then, when she has done all this for the State, has to 
 provide for her own household. The drudgery is so heavy that in 
 some cases the women take steps to avoid child-bearing. 
 
 2 The Rev. J. H. Weeks, in his evidence before the Commission, 
 stated that the people of Monsembe, during two successive years of 
 flood which destroyed their farms, had still to supply the food taxes, 
 and in order to do so had to travel to Lulanga, a distance of forty 
 miles, to buy cassava at an exorbitant price. When it was manu- 
 factured they had to take the kwanga another forty miles up to New 
 Antwerp to deliver it. He stated also that the Ndobo people, whose 
 swampy country is unsuited to the cultivation of cassava, had to buy 
 from the riverine towns at a heavy price in order to meet the inexor- 
 able demands of the State. 
 
the district will be done for." There is an element of truth in 
 the statement, and the danger to the State in permitting such an 
 important post to be dependent for its victualling on the natives, 
 is obvious. A famine might easily arise from the arrest or re- 
 tardation of the supply, due to some trifling incident. 
 
 Thus, at Coquilhatville, the quantity of provision furnished ^7^ 
 is often deficient; a party of soldiers has been kept without food 
 for twenty-four hours, and the greatest diflRculty is found in vic- 
 tualling the black crews of the many steamers which call at this 
 port. 
 
 The remedy is obvious. In the neighbourhood of all large 
 centres of population, areas proportioned to the population 
 should be laid under cultivation. The soldiers' wives, who now 
 pass their time in chattering and squabbling, might, in some 
 measure, be employed on these, and the burden of their support 
 removed from the shoulders of their hard-worked sisters. In 
 the meantime, rice and dried fish might be used; but if the 
 State must for some time yet depend upon distant villages for 
 the victualling of its posts, the heavy burden of carriage should ^79 
 be replaced by some kind of traction, animal or mechanical. / 
 
 Dried fish also plays an important part in the nourishment of 
 the native. Almost all the product of the fishing industry goes 
 to support the black servants on the stations. This tax is sub- 
 ject to the same objections as that just dealt with; the quantity 
 demanded is often out of proportion to the diminished popula- 
 tion on which it is imposed, and on certain river banks which 
 are thinly populated, the tax is requisitioned over a long dis- 
 tance. People inhabiting the neighbourhood of Lulonga, for 
 example, are compelled to convey their fish, by canoe, 70 to 80 
 kilometres (44-50 miles) every fortnight to New Antwerp, and 
 have often suffered imprisonment when behindhand through no 180 
 fault of their own. 
 
 A special criticism directed against this particular form of 
 impost is the diflficulty of supplying the tax regularly when the 
 river is in flood, and when fishing is therefore difficult or unpro- 
 ductive. The remark is just, but the difiiculties of fishing in 
 high waters would be considerably reduced, if the native were 
 better equipped. This leads to a general remark of great im- 
 portance in the matter of the victualling of the stations. 
 
 The Commission has noted with surprise how little con- 
 tact with the white has modified native methods. The European 
 has limited his education to a few industries, such as printing, 
 shoe-making, etc., but he has done nothing to improve the native 
 industries, which are of vital importance to the negro. The 
 method of preparation of manioc bread is the same to-day as 
 it was twenty-five years ago, and it is marvellous how dispro- 
 portionate is the result to the labour expended. Some progress i8r 
 should be realised in this matter, analogous to the improvements 
 in corn milling and bread baking in Europe. In a very short 
 
32 
 
 time the native fishermen might be taught to use tackle which 
 would be to them a revelation. In this way the fishermen would 
 not only satisfy their obligations in a much shorter time, but 
 might reap a profit from their dried fish, which is a dainty to 
 the negro. The Commissioners hope that the State, and the 
 missions which have undertaken the instruction of the native, 
 will resolutely apply themselves to educate them in this direction. 
 
 There only remain to be noticed impositions in fresh food 
 destined exclusively for the white man. Game, small cattle, and 
 fowls are requisitioned. The only complaint to which the tax in 
 game has given rise is the prohibition of the chase for seven months 
 of the year, ^ a prohibition which deprives the native of nutriment 
 to which he is accustomed. The law which prohibits the hunting 
 of the elephant, prevents the black from protecting his planta- 
 182 tions against its inroads. But there is provision for this in 
 the law of 5th October, 1889, which enacts that anyone may 
 protect his life or property, but in the event of the elephant being 
 killed or captured, the animal must be delivered to the district 
 Commissioner. 
 
 The Commission has witnessed for itself the growing rarity 
 and consequent dearness of sheep, goats, fowls and ducks, and 
 accounts for it by the fact that instead of being an object of 
 trade, these are demanded as an impost, sometimes without ade- 
 quate payment. The native is thus discouraged from rearing a 
 commodity which is absolutely essential to the health of the 
 white man In Africa.^ As a rule, small cattle and barn-yard 
 fowls ought to be the subject of free transactions between the 
 white and the native. 
 
 ^ It should be noted that the Evangelical missionaries on the Congo 
 are only incidentally engaged in industrial pursuits, their operations 
 being limited to the requirements of their own stations. It is, more- 
 over, extremely difficult to get the native to change his customs. 
 
 ' On account of the failure of the goat referred to below, a tax in 
 venison has frequently been substituted ; and if this has given rise to 
 no criticism It is due to the fact that the villages which are taxed In 
 deer are in the interior, and the Commission has no evidence in 
 regard to them. The wild antelope, which the natives of certain 
 villages are expected to take alive once a week (even during the seven 
 months when the chase is prohibited by law), is not always easily 
 obtained, and in some towns in the La Lulanga territory the tax 
 presses on the native very heavily on account of the Increasing 
 scarcity of the animal. 
 
 *Two military camps formerly existed in the neighbourhood of 
 Upoto, one at Umangi and one at Lisala. At each of these camps 
 some ten Europeans were resident. Goats, fowls, eggs, and fresh 
 fish were demanded from various villages to supply the table. At 
 first the supply of goats and fowls was equal to the demand; but 
 owing to the constant weekly tax, to the irregular fines in goats and 
 fowls by the local State authorities, and to the thieving propensities 
 
33 
 
 C. —Forced Labour (Corvdes.) 
 
 Apart from the taxes in victuals, the natives are required 183 
 to furnish to the State a certain amount of labour : wood-cut- 
 ting", work at the stations, canoeingf, and portage. 
 
 (a) Wood- Cutting. — The eigfhty steamers that sail on the 
 waters of the Congo and its affluents, are dependent upon a daily 
 supply of wood for fuel, and this has necessitated the establish- 
 ing of fuelling stations on all the navigable rivers. In some 
 cases, the provision of timber constitutes a tax on the natives; 
 in others, the work is done by paid wood-cutters; while there 
 exists also a mixed system in which taxed and paid labour are 
 found side by side. 
 
 This tax is sometimes excessive and is often imposed with 
 great irregularity; e.g., groups of 7, 8, 17, 20, ig, 39, and 99 
 men in the neighbourhood of Lulonga, are subjected to the same 
 tax of 25 fathoms per village. The presence at the stations of 
 paid workmen who are supposed to co-operate with the villagers 184 
 in the fuelling of the steamers is a source of further difficulty, 
 for, naturally, they seek to devolve their task upon the taxed 
 native. Thus it comes that the wood-cutters of Lulonga are a 
 plague in this district, and the capitaSy or black overseers, at 
 this post, are veritable despots. 
 
 The abuses of the system are so grave, that the Commis- 
 sioners are forced to the conclusion that this impost ought 
 to be suppressed wherever it is possible, and to be replaced ex- 
 clusively by paid labour. 
 
 (b) Work at the Stations. — When the black personnel of a 
 station is insufficient for the labour required, it frequently hap- 185 
 pens that a certain number of hours of forced, but remunerated, 
 labour at the station, is demanded of the native. The repair 
 
 of the roads, the telegraph line, etc., are imposed upon him; ^ 
 he is also required to furnish materials for building con- 
 struction. This forced labour is very much disliked by the 
 
 of the soldiers, it gradually diminished until the market price of a goat 
 rose from barter goods of the value of 5s. to the present value in 
 barter goods of ;^3. 
 
 Before the repeal of the tax on goats, which became necessary on 
 account of their practical disappearance, the natives were glad to 
 purchase from the South bank or elsewhere, with barter goods to the 
 value of ;^2 or ;^3, an animal for which they would receive from the 
 State authorities brass rods to the value of 5s. 
 
 Fowls have also risen in value to such an extent that, whereas ten 
 years ago a fowl could be purchased in the Upoto district for 15 brass 
 rods, to-day a native, purchasing a fowl from a neighbouring village 
 to meet the State tax, has frequently to pay 80 to 100 rods for that 
 for which he receives 15 to 20. 
 
 In many districts the natives have been left without goat or fowl 
 from which to breed, so insensate has been the folly of their white 
 taxmasters. 
 
 ^Much of this work is done by women, sometimes in the heat of 
 the sun. 
 
34 
 
 native. It imposes in some cases almost continuous work upon 
 the blacks contiguous to the stations. It may be demanded at 
 any moment, to repair the ravages of a storm, for example, or 
 to supplement the work upon a plantation which, on account 
 of the shortness of hands, is not progressing- with sufficient 
 rapidity. It is easy to understand the perturbation which such 
 sudden requisitions cause in the homes of the indolent black 
 man. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Lake Tumba, the Commission heard 
 complaints that the women of the villages of Ikoko had to work 
 for periods of a fortnight in the plantations, a proceeding which 
 was strongly resented by the natives, who feel sensibly the de- 
 privation of their wives during so long a time. ^ Similar requisi- 
 i86 tions appear to have suggested the flight of a whole village on the 
 Lulonga. It should, however, be added, in justice, that fre- 
 quently the fault lies with the natives themselves, who remove 
 the burden from their own shoulders to those of the women. 
 
 (c) Canoeing. — This form of forced labour has given rise to 
 no complaints, except such as arise from the sudden nature of 
 the requisition and its excessive duration.^ Under present cir- 
 cumstances it can hardly be suppressed, but where possible it 
 would be well to establish a regular service of paid canoe-men. 
 
 (d) Portage. — This is, beyond contradiction, of all classes of 
 forced labour, that which weighs most heavily upon the native. 
 Thanks to the wonderful network of rivers with which Central 
 Africa is covered, the greater portion of the transport is effected 
 by water, but elsewhere the only carrier is man himself; for it 
 has been found impossible to acclimatise beasts of burden. The 
 construction of the railway of the Cataracts has made the most 
 
 187 celebrated of African portages a matter of history, but for this 
 one route which has disappeared, the opening up of new districts, 
 
 188 especially in the extreme East and the South, has led to the 
 establishment of several. 
 
 The Commission has been unable to study the problem of 
 carriage on the spot, but it has received full information in re- 
 gard to two routes. In the districts of the Province Orientale 
 and of Kasai Katanga, the quantity of loads transported is enor- 
 mous, while the population is scanty, and, as a consequence, 
 the same individuals are regularly charged with the labour. 
 Moreover, provisions are rare, and almost unequal to the vic- 
 tualling of the caravans of carriers. Magistrates have testified 
 to the sad consequences of portage, which crushes the unhappy 
 populations subjected to it and threatens them with partial de- 
 struction. 
 
 'The fact that the women are brought to centres of population, 
 and cannot return to their towns at night, has most deplorable moral 
 results. 
 
 * Another source of complaint is that the villagers who are already 
 taxed in fish are sometimes requisitioned as paddlers without any 
 remission of the standing tax. 
 
35 
 
 This state of things must be remedied at once. The con- 
 struction of railways in these districts doubtless lies in the far 
 future, but it is to be hoped that some experiments, already par- 
 tially successful, in the training of elephants, zebras and camels, 
 may lead to happy results. In the meantime, the waterways 
 must be used more largely, even if the route should prove longer 
 and more expensive. If it is found possible to make roads 189 
 suitable for automobiles, the State should set its hand to this 
 at once. Excessively heavy portage can only be justified if in its 
 nature it is not only essential, but temporary. For the Eastern 
 frontier, the more rapid and apparently easier transport from the 
 East Coast should be used. To remedy the scarcity of victuals, 
 agricultural villages should be planted at intervals all along the 
 routes, and the Government has already given instructions to this 
 effect. The work of portage should be extended over the 
 greatest possible number of contributors, and the chefs de poste 
 should always themselves superintend the recruiting, and should 
 not trust to their too easily corrupted capitas. The sick, infirm 
 and invalids should, in all cases, be exempt, as prescribed by 
 the law; but above all, it is necessary, before undertaking the 
 construction of works of considerable importance in distant re- 
 gions, to consider carefully whether the end contemplated can 
 be attained, without imposing on the native population too great 
 a burden. 
 
 D.— Products of the Domaine. 190 
 
 (a) Copal. — The gathering of copal presents hardly any diffi- 
 culty,^ and the Commission has received no complaint regarding 
 this imp>osition. 
 
 The remuneration of a mitako per kilogramme, enables the 
 native to earn a good wage. The low rate of payment in pro- 
 portion to the selling price in Europe has been adversely criti- 
 cised, but the reasoning is vicious. When it is a question of the 
 gathering of a product of the domain, the value of the work only 
 should enter into consideration, ^ as is the case in the working of 
 the precious metals in Europe. 
 ■ '^ ■ 
 
 ^ The Rev. Somerville Gilchrist, of the Congo Balolo Mission, 
 writes : ** If the Commission had visited the towns on the Ikelemba 
 and on the Lulongo and sat down a day or two in them, they would 
 have seen whether there was difficulty or no. When the Commis- 
 sioners had seen the natives dragging themselves in at night after 
 a weary search through submerged forests with a little piece or two 
 in the bottom of their basket, or huddling together shivering under a 
 few palm leaves with a little bit of fire in their midst, on a cold, rainy 
 night such as they so frequently get in those swampy equatorial 
 forests, they might have given another definition of the nature of the 
 work. When they have managed to fill their baskets they get 10 rods 
 {4|d.) as payment. (See Official Organ of the Congo Reform Asso- 
 ciation for December, 1905, page 3.) 
 
 *At a Government station on Lake Tumba, Consul Casement saw 
 ten sacks of gum just brought in by a very small village, for which, 
 the chief of the post told him, he had paid one piece of blue drill of 
 
36 
 
 (h) India-rubber. — India-rubber is obtained by making in- 
 cisions in the bark of certain trees, and by collecting the sap 
 which flows therefrom in receptacles, which are emptied every 
 
 191 few hours. Notwithstanding the prohibitions issued for the pre- 
 servation of the trees, it frequently happens that the native cuts 
 them in place of making an incision, to facilitate the work of 
 collecting the sap. The wealth in india-rubber of the forests is 
 a question upon which the most divergent opinions are expressed, 
 and upon which obviously the Commission can form no opinion; 
 but it appears beyond doubt that an exploitation which has 
 lasted for years, must eventually exhaust the districts in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the native villages. This circum- 
 stance explains the repugnance of the negro for a work which, 
 in itself, is not difficult. In most cases he is, as a matter of fact, 
 compelled to make a journey of two days and sometimes more, 
 to reach that part of the forest where india-rubber is to be found 
 in sufficient quantity. There he leads a miserable existence 
 during a certain number of days; he must construct for himseli 
 an improvised shelter, and he lacks the nourishment to which he 
 is accustomed; he is deprived of his wife, exposed to the in- 
 
 192 clemency of the atmosphere and to the attacks of wild beasts. It 
 is only after he has carried his produce to the post of the State or 
 of the company that he may return to his village, where he can 
 remain only two or three days before a new term of service 
 presses upon him. Hence, whatever activity he may display in the 
 forest, the greater portion of his time is absorbed in coming 
 and going on the numerous journeys imposed upon him. It 
 is hardly necessary to remark that this condition of affairs is a 
 flagrant violation of the law of ** forty hours." ' In the opinion 
 of the Commission, the visits to the forest ought to be consider- 
 ably reduced in number, say, to once only in three months. 
 Thus the time lost in going and coming would be inconsiderable, 
 
 192 and the residence in the forest being longer, the native would 
 doubtless consider it worth while to construct a more suitable 
 shelter, and to take with him his wife, who would prepare for 
 him the nourishment to which he is accustomed. The quantity 
 of india-rubber demanded should also be fixed more judiciously, 
 and should cease to be, as it is now, a maximum which is rarely 
 attained, and which must be considered excessive. 
 
 Compulsion. — ^The special aversion of the native to working 
 
 194 india-rubber renders compulsion especially necessary in this 
 particular case. In recent years, this compulsion has been exer- 
 
 the value, after adding cost of transport, of fr.ii^. The value of this 
 parcel, after transport to Europe, he puts at fr.350. Another village 
 received 150 rods (fr.75) for an equal quantity. 
 
 He reckons that in the village of Montaka 150 householders con- 
 tribute 65 tons per annum for a remuneration of fr.247, or fr. 1.64 per 
 worker per annum — the price of a good-sized fowl. [See Africa,. 
 No. I, (1904), pp. 3I5 32-] 
 
 A See Additional Note B — Taxation, page 85 7^ 
 
37 
 
 cised in various ways : the taking" of hostages; the detention 
 of chiefs; the institution of sentinels or of capitas; fines and 
 armed expeditions. 
 
 I. Constraint as Exercised by the White Man. — The agfents 
 charged with compulsion applied the native principle of the 
 solidarity of all those who depend on the same chief, and often 
 gave themselves very little trouble to discover the true culprit. 
 The taxes were due by the village as a whole, and when they 
 were not furnished, the chiefs were arrested and hostages from 
 among the inhabitants, often women, were taken haphazard. 
 The means was often effective and is consistent with native ideas; 
 but such a proceeding as the detention of women as hostages 195 
 conflicts too violently with our idea of justice to be tolerated. 
 The State has long since prohibited this practice, but without 
 succeeding in suppressing it. As to the arrest of chiefs, who 
 are not alv/ays personally in default, its obvious effect is to 
 diminish or to completely destroy their authority, ^ the more 
 especially as it happens that they are subjected to servile labour. 
 Moreover, the period of detention was left to the agents, and 
 we have documentary evidence that this detention might be pro- 
 longed to several months. It is indeed affirmed that those who 
 were subjected to detention at the posts were not badly treated, 
 and that excessive work was not imposed upon them. It is 
 even said that the lot of the women was less painful than the 
 existence to which native customs subjected them in their vil- 
 lages. Nevertheless, it is beyond question that detention has 
 often been aggravated by the circumstances which accompanied 
 It, that sometimes the location of the prisoners was in bad re- 
 pair, that they lacked the necessaries of life, and that the mor- 
 tality among them was considerable.^ Commanders of stations, 
 
 ' Mrs. Ruskin writes : " It is a misfortune for any man to be a 
 chief in the A.B.I.R. territory, as he is then a marked man, and 
 spends the majority of his time either in prison or in the forest, 
 whither he flees to escape from prison. I have seen highly respected 
 mative chiefs, tied neck to neck, working at roads, grass, etc., under 
 the superintendence of mere boys, armed and set over them as 
 sentries." (See Official Organ C.R.A. for December, p. 14.) 
 
 Anyone may read in Consul Casement's report (p. 38) how little 
 the distinction of being a Congo chief is prized. 
 
 2 There is abundant illustration of these remarks. None know the 
 facts better than the missionaries of the Congo Balolo Mission. Rev. 
 Somerville Gilchrist writes : " I shall never forget the impression left 
 on my mind by the sight of one of these horrible houses of detention. 
 It was at Mompona, in the A.B.I.R. territory. It was a small, low- 
 roofed, circular building, with the only entrance to it through another 
 building of the same type. This latter was occupied by a number of 
 sentries with Albini rifles. Inside the other were herded a large 
 number of women, girls and boys — a mass of bones held together 
 by black skin. I addressed myself to one poor skeleton of a woman 
 lying in front of me where I stood. I asked her if she was sick. 
 •Two days ago,' she answered, ' I gave birth to a child, and oh I 
 white man, I am dying of hunger, I've had nothing to eat.' She 
 
38 
 
 usurping a right which has never belonged to them, have flogged 
 collectors who have not furnished their full impositions. Blacks, 
 196 set as guards over the prisoners, sometimes treated them with 
 considerable violence. 
 
 These abuses are not unknown in the territories of the 
 Domaine priv^. The Commission has authenticated by documen- 
 tary evidence most of the facts to which the Revs. Whitehead, 
 Weeks and Gilchrist have borne testimony. Acts of great 
 violence have been committed, especially in the neighbourhood 
 of Lake Leopold II and of Bangala, in the region of Lake 
 Tumba, on the Uele, and on the Aruwimi; but all the witnesses 
 acknowledge that a great amelioration has taken place in recent 
 times. Two Evangelical missionaries, speaking of the district 
 of Lake Leopold II, declared that in this district the situation 
 is now good compared with what it had been previously. ^ Un- 
 
 was so weak that it was with difficulty she could articulate her words. 
 And oh, the faces of those others ! The horror of it ! Outside the 
 building there was a row of those skeleton women in the chain, fol- 
 lowed by a sentry with an Albini and a chicotte, going back and 
 forward from the garden to the river." {Organ of the C.R.A.^ 
 December, 1905, p. 4-) 
 
 Mrs. Ruskin writes : ** I have known women to be taken without 
 any respect to their condition, during pregnancy or the period of 
 lactation. They were made to work in the sun, at grass work or 
 weeding ; some were confined in the common prison or hostage house 
 without any privacy, and obliged to be at work again in a few days 
 with their babies at their backs. The hostage house at Bongandanga 
 was described to me by a woman who had been imprisoned there, 
 and the details would be unprintable." {Ihid, p. 14.) 
 
 Those statements find ample confirmation in the report of Consul 
 Casement. He writes of a hostage house belonging to the La 
 Lulanga company : ' 
 
 ** In an open shed I found two sentries guarding fifteen women, 
 five of whom had infants at the breast, and three of whom were 
 about to become mothers. The chief of these sentries . . . volun- 
 teered an explanation of the reason for these women's detention. 
 Four of them, he said, were being held to insure the peaceful settle- 
 ment of a dispute between two neighbouring towns. . . . The re- 
 maining eleven women ... he was detaining as prisoners to compel 
 their husbands to bring in the right amount of india-rubber n quired 
 of them on next market day. . . . 
 
 " At nightfall the fifteen women in the shed were tied together, 
 either neck to neck or ankle to ankle, to secure them for the night, 
 and in this posture I saw them twice during the evening. They were 
 trying to huddle around a fire. ..." [Africa, No. 1 (1904), pp. 
 
 46, 47-] 
 
 * Only after the country has been almost entirely depopulated. The 
 Rev. A. E. Scrivener visited this district in 1903, and reported a scene 
 of the utmost desolation. Whole regions that had been thickly inhabited 
 were cleared of any vestige of population. Large villages, where the 
 people had lived under many chiefs, had been reduced, in the space of 
 a few months, by the insensate cruelty of a past officer, to a hundred 
 inhabitants. A benevolent white man who resided at one of the posts 
 ■which he visited, informed him that he might *' walk on for five days 
 
39 
 
 happily, this is not the case in the districts exploited by certain 
 commercial companies. From documents relating- to Mongala, 
 and from a long- and minute enquiry by the Commission in the 197 
 concession of Abir, facts similar to those mentioned above have 
 been established. It is scarcely denied that, in the different 
 posts of Abir which were visited, the imprisonment of female 
 hostag-es, the subjection of chiefs to servile labour, the humilia- 
 tions inflicted upon them, the flog-ging of india-rubber hands, and 
 brutalities by black prison guards, were habitually practised. 
 The Commission received similar testimony on the Lulonga. 
 
 In the case of non-payment of taxes, as well as by way of 
 punishment for a revolt, it has frequently happened that civil 
 or military functionaries have imposed on the villag-ers fines, 
 sometimes very heavy. ^ This abuse has been recently sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 2. Sentinels. — By sentinels are meant black overseers, -armed 
 with a percussion g"un, whose business it is to supervise the 
 work of the natives in the forest, and to prevent the devastation 
 of these by the cutting- of the trees, but whose duty, in the 198 
 main, is limited to reminding* the blacks of their obligations, 
 seeing that they turn out to the forest, and accompanying the 
 collectors as they go to the station. 
 
 Two kinds of sentinels exist. 
 
 The first generally belong to the personnel of the station 
 and are almost entirely strangers to the district. They visit 
 the villages when the natives ought to be at work and indicate 
 
 in one direction and not see a single village or a single human being," 
 and this where there was formerly a big tribe. He heard tales of 
 the most horrible cruelty on the part of this man's predecessor, the 
 officer referred to above, who is reported to have shot dead on the 
 threshold of his store natives who had come in with a shortage of 
 rubber. The whole picture is one of a great and populous district 
 reduced to absolute desolation. (See Regions Beyond for February, 
 1904, where Mr. Scrivener's letter is transcribed from the West 
 African Mail of January 8th.) 
 
 ^ Reference has already been made (Note to Section 143) to a heavy 
 fine imposed by the authorities on a town in the neighbourhood of 
 Coquilhatville. This fine was imposed in the beginning of 1903 for 
 a shortage in the supply of fowls, and was levied by means of an 
 armed expedition. It consisted in twenty-five men for labour under 
 the Government, and 55,000 brass rods (;^iio). At the time of Consul 
 Casement's visit in August, the whereabouts of the men were not 
 known. 
 
 But while the Consul was in a neighbouring village a fresh fine 
 of 20,000 rods was imposed on the neighbourhood, of which 6,000 
 would fall on the town referred to, which had not yet recovered from 
 the previous large contribution. 
 
 On these and other heavy fines see pp. 38-41 of the Consul's 
 report. 
 
 "See the references to sentinels in Consul Casement's report scat- 
 tered through pages 44-60. He deals with the question specifically 
 on p. 57, and makes some attempt to estimate their number, which 
 he places at not less than 10,000 men. [Africa, No. i (1904).] 
 
40 
 
 to the white man the absconders. Sometimes they are told off 
 to a particular village where they establish themselves. These 
 are the sentilisy properly so-called. They are by far the most 
 noxious, for, being strangers, they exercise no caution in their 
 proceedings with the blacks with whom they have to do. 
 
 The others are generally called capitas and are chosen by 
 the white man from the village itself which they are charged to 
 watch; vis-a-vis, of the native chief they represent, in the eye 
 of the negro, the State or the company. 
 
 This institution of black overseers has given rise to many 
 complaints, even on the part of the functionaries of the State. 
 The Protestant missionaries examined at Bolobo and elsewhere 
 formulated many serious accusations against these inter- 
 mediaries. They brought before the Commission a multitude 
 of native witnesses, who testified to a great number of crimes 
 or of excesses committed by these sentinels. 
 '99 According to the witnesses, they abuse their authority and 
 become despots, demanding women and victuals, not only for 
 themselves, but for the following of vagabond parasites whom 
 the love of rapine attaches to them like a veritable bodyguard. 
 They kill without pity all those who offer resistance to their 
 demands or caprices. The Commission has transmitted to com- 
 petent magistrates the minutes of the enquiries at Abir, Lulonga, 
 and Bolobo, relative to felonious or criminal acts. 
 
 It is impossible to tell, even approximately, the number of 
 abuses by these men. Several chiefs in the district of Baringa 
 brought us, according to the native method, bundles of rods, 
 each of which was assumed to represent one of their subjects 
 killed by the capitas. One of them declared that a total of 120 
 murders had been committed during recent years in his own 
 village. Whatever confidence may be placed in this reckoning, 
 a document sent to the Commission by the Director of Abir 
 200 leaves no doubt as to the baleful nature of the institution. It 
 shows that, in the first seven months of 1905, one hundred and 
 forty-two sentinels of the company had been killed or wounded 
 by the natives. It may be assumed that these were attacked 
 by way of reprisal, whence one may judge how many bloody 
 conflicts their presence has given rise to. ^ No attempt was 
 made by the agents who were interrogated by the Commission 
 to refute the accusations against the sentinels. The Director 
 of the Abir declared that ''the sentinel is an evil, but he is a neces- 
 sary evil." The Commission cannot share this view. In their 
 opinion the institution of capitas and sentinels, as it exists at 
 Abir and Lulonga, should be suppressed. Certain steps have 
 been taken in this direction,^ but it is indispensable to go still 
 
 ^ No reference is made by the Commissioners to the number of 
 killed and wounded or to the prisoners taken in the counter-reprisals, 
 made by the white agents, for these attacks on the sentries. 
 
 ' Mr. Padfield, writing from Baringa, under date 25th August, 
 1905, says: "The agent here has sent out for all the sentries who 
 
41 
 
 further, and to put an end to the regime as we have seen It at 
 work. The intermediary between the white man and the native 
 ought, as far as possible, to be the village chief. The authority 
 of the legitimate chiefs, which has suffered a grievous eclipse 
 by reason of the institution, would be restored by their disappear- 
 ance. It is essential that the State should withdraw the permit 201 
 to carry arms from the capitas and demand the restitution of 
 all guns, except those regularly appropriated to the defence 
 of factories and white men, and the personal arms of the latter. 
 
 General Remarks on Taxation. — ^It remains to the Commis- 
 sion to indicate the general principles which ought to guide the 
 State in the delicate matter of the taxation of the native. In 
 the first place, should the impost be collective or individual? 
 Certainly, the individual impost is more logical and more just 
 than one which is collective; but there are insurmountable diffi- 
 culties to its application. Few natives have any belongings, 202 
 and many are nomadic or change their residence with extreme 
 facility. Their names also hardly suffice to identify them. The 
 drawing up of lists of names, therefore, entails considerable 
 work, and the recovery of the tax due by each native separately 
 would introduce into the accounts of the agents considerable 
 complication. 
 
 The collective tax, on the contrary, simplifies the operation 
 of the drawing up of lists and the recovery of the tax. It may 
 be repugnant to our ideas, but it accords perfectly with native 
 custom. The Commissioners, therefore, fall back upon the 203 
 principle of the collective tax, ^ although they do not hide from 
 themselves the imperfections of the plan, especially in the equit- 
 able distribution of labour among the subjects of the same chief. 
 Each year the quota should be fixed per village, according to 
 the approximate number of the inhabitants. The chiefs, under 
 the control of the authorities, should watch over the distribution 
 and the payment of the tax. In return, they should be exempt 
 from personal service and should receive the support and pro- 
 tection of the State. They should denounce to the white man 
 recalcitrant subjects and should arrest those who, having per- 
 
 had served previously in that capacity. These men are openly boast- 
 ing to-night that their time has come again. I hear that they are 
 to be sent to the very towns where 'witnesses testified against them 
 before the Commission." (See Official Organ of the Congo Reform 
 Association for December, 1905, p. 19.) 
 
 *The whole of the evidence available points to the fact that the 
 collective tax is an added injustice, where otherwise the native is 
 sufficiently wronged in the matter of taxation. At every turn we 
 read of failure to adjust the impost on towns and villages where the 
 population has diminished. In the smaller villages, where not more 
 than seven or eight adult males reside, it i,s not an uncommon thing 
 for two or three to be imprisoned for shortage, the burden falling 
 upon those who are left, where the original cause of shortage was 
 the impossibility of the task. Whatever the nature of the tax, it 
 ought to be a personal one. 
 
4« 
 
 sistently refused to pay the tax, have rendered compulsion neces- 
 sary. 
 
 The important r61e which the village chiefs would be called 
 upon to fulfil in the system, proposed is obvious, and the State 
 ought to begin by restoring their authority. The local Govern- 
 
 204 ment has lately given instructions in this sense, but frequently the 
 chefs de poste and the inferior agents have followed an opposite 
 policy. In availing themselves of the services of the chiefs to 
 obtain labour and taxes from^ the native, they have rendered 
 these personally responsible for all deficiences and for all the 
 sins of their people, without recognising their authority. For 
 this reason many have disappeared or are in hiding, others 
 refuse persistently to enter into contract with the white. Upheld 
 by the State, the chiefs all over the Congo would form an ex- 
 tremely useful class, interested in the maintenance of an order 
 which conserves their prestige and their authority. 
 
 The greatest prudence, however, should be used in the re- 
 cognition of native chiefs. It is necessary that, as far as pos- 
 sible, only the natural chiefs, designated by custom and tradi- 
 tion, should be invested with official authority. These would 
 
 205 exercise a parental government, their power is accepted by the 
 people, the natives show much respect and attachment to them, 
 and seldom formulate complaints against them. On the con- 
 trary, recriminations against strangers to the village are in- 
 numerable, and such should never be chosen; but in the event of 
 the natural chief being, for a sufficient reason, deposed, 
 his successor should be chosen from his own family. It can- 
 not be too often repeated; a strange chief profits by the 
 authority of the State only to exploit its subjects; there is no more 
 terrible tyrant than a black man placed over other blacks. 
 
 The functions with which it is proposed to invest the chiefs 
 can never be conferred on white men, for, apart from the ex- 
 pense, these inferior agents would find themselves exposed to 
 
 206 continual danger, and would have to be accompanied by armed 
 negroes, who would demand constant surveillance. Moreover, 
 it is desirable that, wherever possible, the State should utilise 
 the services of black men, conferring on them such employment 
 as they are fit for, but without trusting them with arms, except 
 in very exceptional cases. ^ 
 
 ^The missionaries almost unanimously criticise adversely the pro- 
 posed reforms. They point out that the natural chief under the pre- 
 sent regime would become as great a tyrant as the sentinel; that it 
 would be impossible for him to force the collection of rubber without 
 arms; and that the proposed system would entail as many outrages 
 as that at present in vogue. 
 
 Mr. Gilchrist illustrates the first point by the case of an influential 
 young chief named Ibuka, of Bonkene, near Coquilhatville, whom 
 the Commissaire of the district enlisted in his service. He was used 
 for collecting impositions, and was paid by results. His success has 
 been such that from possessing two wives he has come to hold one 
 hundred, besides slaves. (See Official Organ C.R.A. for December, 
 p. 4.) 
 
43 
 
 The oblig-ation to pay the tax in labour necessarily fetters 
 to some extent the individual liberty of ^he native. The law 
 ought to permit every one to free himself from the labour tax 
 by an annual or bi-annual payment in money or kind. This 
 tax ought to be calculated on the basis of the value of the 
 handiwork which is due from the native by way of impost. It 
 might easily exceed this value, to prevent the contributor from 207 
 too easily withdrawing himself from manual labour. This power 
 would profit those negroes who have acquired a certain amount 
 of instruction, or who have received a professional education, 
 but who do not enjoy the exemption accorded by law to those 
 who have entered the service of the State or of individuals. 
 
 The necessity on the Congo of an impost in work has 
 been recognised. The value of this impost, fixed at forty 
 hours per month, appears equitable. Moreover, it is not 
 proposed to contest the legitimacy of the principle of compul- 
 sion established by law. At the same time, in the application 
 of this law, the agents ought to show the greatest toleration. 
 The nature of the Congo native should never be lost sight 
 of. It may be that in the future his condition may approach 
 to that which exists among Europeans, and he may work, not 
 only to pay the tax, but also to live; but his nature is not 208 
 changed in a day, and it is only slowly that the negro will be 
 accustomed to toil. Demands which to us appear moderate, 
 to him appear excessive and vexatious, and if, for every slight 
 neglect, compulsion is resorted to, there cannot fail to be a repe- 
 tition of the regrettable incidents which have already taken place. 
 
 In the case of individual short-coming, the intervention of 
 the chief, should his authority be re-enforced, will sensibly 
 diminish the defects inherent to the exercise of cooipulsion; 
 but in presence of a general refusal to pay the tax, the chiefs 
 themselves, however good their intention, will be powerless, 
 armed intervention will be necessary and frequent conflicts will 
 be provoked. In fact, the native will only submit grudgingly 
 to a simple requisition. If he should flee he must be pur- 
 sued into the forest; if he should resist, there will be " dead and 
 wounded "; sometimes, even acts of savagery will occur, such 
 as accompany combats between the blacks. Such incidents 
 may not, in the eyes of the Congolese, who have known the 
 horrors of continual intestine strife, have the same importance 209 
 as in ours; but it is easy to understand how they affect public 
 opinion among civilised peoples who do not understand the 
 conditions of the country. It would doubtless be an exaggera- 
 tion to deduce from these considerations the necessity of 
 abolishing constraint entirely. Force is the only thing which the 
 native understands; he confounds it with right. ^ The State must 
 be able to secure the triumph of law, and must consequently com- 
 
 'This is a most extraordinary statement. Have not the natives 
 appealed to the Commissioners all along the route for justice as 
 ar:ainst force? 
 
44 
 
 pel the black man to work; but if she should wish to avoid the 
 regrettable consequences which have been indicated, it is 
 necessary that this right should be used only in the last ex- 
 tremity, or, to be precise, only in cases of grave and repeated 
 short-coming and of evident unwillingness. This method of 
 procedure is the only one which will yield durable results, for 
 the repeated employment of force, even if it should yield an im- 
 mediate advantage, always depopulates the surroundings of a 
 post; the populace emigrates, disappears, or revolts. 
 
 210 It is evidently a prudent and wise policy to require only that 
 which will be granted easily and without compulsion by the 
 population. In maintaining the principle of forty hours of 
 work per month, this rate should, as the law explicitly declares, 
 be a maximum which can only be gradually attained. ^ This 
 idea has already found expression in the report presented by 
 the Secretaires generaux to the King Sovereign, under date 15th 
 July, 1900, which contains the following : " The end pursued 
 by the Government is to attain the development of the Domaine 
 prive of the State exclusively by means of voluntary contribu- 
 tions on the part of the natives, by urging them to labour by 
 the allurement of a just and adequate remuneration." Such a 
 
 211 course would not have consequences prejudicial to the 
 Treasury, for the State would be able to extend its action over 
 a larger number of contributors. It is not rash to afllirm that 
 the great majority of natives escape all impost, either on ac- 
 count of the incomplete penetration of the territory, or by 
 reason of the exodus of populations which have taken fright 
 at the first demands imposed upon them. 
 
 Agents of all grades should become penetrated with these 
 ideas. They should understand that their first duty is to watch 
 over the well-being of the populations which they are charged 
 to administer, and that there is no merit in the use of force, 
 which, indeed, savages know how to employ better than civilised 
 men. The State, on her part, ought to reserve her favours 
 for the agents who, by their tact, patience, and moderation, 
 have won the affection of the people and inspired them with 
 confidence, and who have in this way contrived to obtain results 
 which others have sought to obtain by violent means. As 
 to commercial companies from whom, as will appear later, it 
 is proposed to withdraw the power of exercising compulsion — 
 they must understand that if the State comes to their aid in 
 stimulating, by means of a tax in labour, the natural apathy of 
 the blacks, they must, on their side, set themselves 
 to understand better the nature of the native populations, and, 
 in their own interests, as well as to the great profit of the 
 natives, they must become inspired with the principles which 
 govern all commercial operations. 
 
 * Compare this with the fact that in many districts, especially 
 those in which rubber is worked, nearly the whole time of the native 
 is occupied in fulfilling the demands of the law. 
 
45 
 
 III-MILITARY EXPEDITIONS. 
 
 21Z 
 
 I. Expeditions Undertaken by the State. — The Commis- 
 sioners say nothing" of those military expeditions which have 
 for their object the suppression of revolt. Apart from these, 
 expeditions may be both necessary and legitimate to assure 
 the maintenance of order and respect for the law, but in such 
 cases the expedition should not have the character of a war- 
 like operation, in which martial law is applied and the common 
 right suspended. It should partake of the nature of a demon- 
 stration of police, in which the law should be observed and the 
 rights of the people respected. It is to the wrongful employ- 
 ment of military expeditions that the Commissioners desire to 
 call attention. These are frequently undertaken for the col- 
 lection of imposts and the repression of infractions of the law. 
 Government instructions lay down clearly the course to be 
 followed in police operations which have for their object the 
 compelling of the natives to furnish the taxes which have been 
 imposed. Sometimes, such an expedition consists in a simple 215. 
 pacific reconnaissance, in the course of which the white officer, 
 respecting his instructions, limits himself to leading his troops 
 into the villages and putting himself in touch with the chiefs, 
 thus demonstrating to them the power of the State. This mode 
 of procedure has often excellent results. It is perfectly legiti- 
 mate that in the course of such an expedition the troops should 
 arrest the contributories who may be in default, and subject 
 them to compulsion in accordance with the law. 
 
 Unhappily, such expeditions have not always a pacific 
 character. The written instruction to the commander of the 
 expedition generally simply instructs him to * * recall the natives 
 to their duty." The vagueness of these orders and the levity 
 of the man who is charged to execute them frequently result 
 in murders which cannot be justified. The task committed to 
 the officers is of the most delicate and difficult kind. Often the 
 natives flee at the approach of the troops without offering any 
 resistance; the abandoned village is then generally occupied, 
 or the neighbouring plantations. Driven by hunger, the 214. 
 natives return alone or in little groups; they are arrested and 
 compelled to find the chief and the leading* men, who almost 
 always make their submission, promising- never ag-ain to fail in 
 their obligations, and are sometimes subjected to fines. 
 
 It happens, also, that the natives are slow to reappear, and 
 the patrols are sent to beat the bush and to bring in all 
 whom they may meet with. The dangers of this system are 
 obvious. The armed black, left to himself, reverts to the san- 
 
46 
 
 g-uinary instincts which the strictest discipline has scarcely 
 curbed. It is in the course of such patrols that the greater 
 part of the murders, with which the soldiers of the State have 
 been charged, are committed, and especially those indicated by 
 the Rev. Weeks in an expedition undertaken in the neighbour- 
 hood of Monsembe. The Government has strictly prohibited 
 the sending out of patrols where a white man is not in com- 
 mand, but its orders have frequently been transgressed, not- 
 withstanding the punishments inflicted on defaulting agents. 
 
 A kind of operation which presents still greater difficulties 
 is the expedition undertaken to bring back fugitives. It often 
 happens that the natives, to escape payment of the tax and 
 notably the collection of indiarubber, migrate singly or in mass, 
 and establish themselves in another district. A detachment 
 
 215 is sent to seek for them, which brings back the fugitives to their 
 homes, sometimes by persuasion, sometimes after a combat. 
 
 The laws of the State guarantee absolutely the personal 
 liberty of the natives, who enjoy, equally with the white man, 
 the right to come and go in the territory; nevertheless, in recent 
 circulars, the local Government appears to contest, if not the 
 strict right, at least the possibility of the migration of the native. 
 Starting from the principle already indicated that all lands not 
 effectively occupied belong to the State, it draws the inference 
 that the native cannot instal himself elsewhere than in his native 
 village, without having previously obtained the authorisation of 
 the State. ^ 
 
 As the natives almost always migrate to escape taxation, 
 the State, in restoring them to their villages and imposing 
 labour upon them, does not exceed its right of compulsioji; but 
 this does not justify the employment of arms against the popu- 
 lation whose rebellion, if this term can be employed, has been 
 purely passive. 
 
 2i5 Sometimes, the military expedition takes a punitive char- 
 acter, the object of which is to inflict exemplary punishment on 
 a village, or on a group of natives, of which some unknown 
 individuals have committed a crime or a grave attack on the 
 authority of the State. The order generally runs in the 
 
 following terms : '* N is charged to punish such and such 
 
 a village.'* It is not astonishing that sometimes the most 
 murderous consequences have followed. The expedition may 
 easily degenerate into massacre, accompanied by fire and 
 pillage, the punishment being in flagrant disproportion to the 
 
 ^ Mrs. Ruskin says : '' At Bongandanga no native might visit any 
 other village without a permit, up to the visit of the Commission. If 
 he did so, and was discovered, he might get off by bribing the sentries 
 — or he might receive from them bodily injury by knife or gun — or 
 'if he were brought to the agent, he might be imprisoned. If he 
 passed any other factory in a canoe without showing his permit, he 
 was liable to have a gun fired over him. This was brought before the 
 Commission." {Official Organ C.R.A. for December, 1905, p. 13.) 
 
47 
 
 fault, and the innocent sufferings with the gfuilty. The necessity 
 for the white man, sometimes isolated in regions where the 
 regular operation of justice is not assured, to protect himself 
 or his auxiliaries against the aggressions of savage populations 
 closely bound together by ties of common interest, may ex- 
 plain expeditions of this kind; but, in the opinion of the Com- 217 
 mission, they can only be justified in exceptional cases, and in 
 the measure in which they are undertaken for legitimate 
 defence. 
 
 A military demonstration, which in its origin should have 
 been pacific, may take on an aspect of the most regrettable 
 violence. Much depends on the sang-froid of the officers and 
 their experience in African affairs. Nor does the responsibility 
 for these abuses entirely rest on them; account should be 
 taken of the deplorable confusion which exists in the Haul- 
 Congo between a state of war and a state of peace, between 
 administration and repression, as to who should be considered 
 enemies and who should be treated as citizens of the State. 
 The Commission has been struck witJi the general tone 
 of the reports relative to the operations above described. 
 Sometimes, whilst indicating that an operation has been 
 undertaken oinly on account of the deficiency of the imw 
 post or delay in its delivery, without making any allusion 
 to an attack, or to the resistance of the natives, which 
 aJone would justify the employment of arms, the writers 218 
 of these reports speak of ** surprises of villages," *' furious pur- 
 suits," ** many enemies killed or wounded," ** booty," 
 ** prisoners of war," and ** conditions of peace." Evidently, 
 they have believed themselves to be at war, and their officers 
 have been under the same impression, for, in transmitting these 
 reports to a superior authority, they insert observations on 
 military tactics, on the order of march, or the disposition of the 
 troops which preceded the attack; rarely do they enquire 
 whether the employment of arms was justifiable. 
 
 This situation cannot be prolonged. In the Interest of 
 the populations and even of the agents of the State, the natives 
 must not be exposed to the possibility of being treated at any 
 moment as enemies beyond the pale of the law. The law ought 219 
 to indicate clearly what authorities may order "w^ar-like opera- 
 tions," to determine under what conditions such measures shall 
 be taken, and what form they shall assume. Thus, the officer 
 charged with the conduct of a simple police operation, under- 
 taken to compel the natives to pay the tax, should understand 
 that he Is not marching against ** the enemy," but that his 
 mission Is pimply to recall the subjects of the State to obedi- 
 ence, and that the use of arms can only be permitted to repel 
 a serious and unjustifiable attack; and If, In the course of the 
 operation, there should be dead and wounded, a judicial enquiry 
 should Immediately be set on foot, the responsibility brought 
 home, and the culprits, if there be such, prosecuted. The 
 
48 
 
 instructions, moreover, relative to such operations, should 
 be so clear that no excuse can be founded on the vagueness of 
 the order. In any case, it should be understood that the simple 
 fact of delay or negligence in the payment of imposts, if it 
 
 220 should lead to compulsion, can never justify expeditions having 
 the character of warlike operations. The Commissioners hasten 
 to add that military expeditions of this character have, in most 
 districts, become rare.^ 
 
 2. Expeditions Undertaken by the Companies. — The com- 
 panies cannot undertake armed expeditions. They are per- 
 mitted to have 25 Albinis in each factory — 20 exclusively 
 for the purpose of repelling attacks, and 5 which may be carried 
 under a special permit by the bodyguard of the white man. 
 Over and above these, percussion guns may be entrusted to 
 isolated black capitas^ who must hold a permit to carry arms. 
 By a Government order, these latter cannot be carried by any- 
 one outside the factories, except singly. In spite of these formal 
 prohibitions it has happened several times that commercial 
 agents have made expeditions, escorted by a considerable num- 
 ber of men armed with Albinis, and that these have assumed 
 the character of military expeditions. In certain cases, armed 
 
 221 bands have been sent into native villages unaccompanied by 
 white men. In the course of these irregular operations, grave 
 abuses have been committed — ^men, women and children have 
 been killed, often just as they took to flight, others have been 
 made prisoners, and women have been detained as hostages. 
 Such incidents have occurred, notably, in Mongala. In the 
 concession of Abir, which the Commission has visited, similar 
 abuses have been denounced by the missionaries of the Congo 
 Balolo Mission, as well as by inferior officers and numerous 
 native witnesses. Armed expeditions have also been undertaken 
 by the companies of Lomami and Kassai. The greater portion 
 of the whites actually detained at Boma have been condemned 
 for infractions of this nature. Sometimes the agents of the 
 companies have pleaded the *' right of police " in justification, 
 but this error of interpretation was no longer admissible after 
 the circular of the Governor-General of the 20th October, 1900, 
 had reminded the companies that the right of police is in no 
 wise *' the right to direct military offensive operations or to 
 make war on the natives, but gives them only the power to 
 
 222 requisition, for the maintenance or establishment of order, the 
 armed force which may be either in or without the concession, 
 subject to the reservation that the officers of the State shall re- 
 tain the command of the troops." The Government has, in 
 
 1 Anyone who has followed the report up to this point will readily 
 believe the above statement and the explanation which is universally 
 given of the fact. Former expeditions have been so effective that the 
 tribes against whom they can now be sent are relatively few, and 
 these are so cowed and crushed that it is only on the utmost provoca- 
 tion they are goaded to resistance^ 
 
49 
 
 fact, placed, in certain positions, bodies of police charged with 
 a mission of protection and surveillance, who are directly amen- 
 able to the authority of the Commissioner of the district, but 
 whom the companies can requisition in case of urgency. 
 As far as the Commission can make out, these are at the call 
 of the directors or agents of the commercial companies, who 
 requisition them whenever the pecuniary interests of the com- 
 pany are at stake. 
 
 Mutilations. — ^It is chiefly in the course of armed expeditions 
 that the acts of mutilation have occurred, to which certain wit- 
 nesses, notably the Protestant missionaries, have drawn the 
 attention of the Commission. On Lake Tumba, at Ikoko, some 
 missionaries and several natives have affirmed that they saw, 
 about the year 1895, in a canoe occupied by soldiers, a basket 
 containing from a dozen to twenty hands, which had been cut 
 off. The Rev. Clark declares that he saw, about the same 
 time, in a canoe, some severed hands attached to a stick, which 
 appeared to him to have been smoked. Both canoes were travel- 
 ling towards Bikoro. A native affirms that these hands had 
 been shown to the chef de poste of Bikoro, and Mr. Clark re- 
 ports that this same agent, who is now deceased, said to him, in 223 
 pointing to his dog : '* That dog is a cannibal, it eats severed 
 hands." The same missionary, Mrs. Clark, and Mrs. Whitman 
 declared that they had seen, on several occasions, natives who 
 had been killed in the course of expeditions undertaken by the 
 State, and whose right hand had been cut off". Mr. and Mrs. 
 Clark, and also a black witness, affirmed that they saw a little 
 girl whose right hand had been cut off in the course of an ex- 
 pedition, and who died at the end of six months, in spite of all 
 the medical care which was lavished upon her, and a woman 
 amputated in a like fashion. Finally, these missionaries spoke 
 to us of a native named Mola, who had lost both hands as a 
 result of ill-treatment inflicted by the soldiers, a fact which 
 has been established by enquiry. 
 
 Certain black witnesses of the district of Lake Leopold II, 
 produced by Mr. Scrivener at Bolobo, declared that, five or six 
 years ago, their village having been occupied by the troops of the 
 State after a combat, they saw portions of the bodies of seven 
 male natives, killed during the fight, suspended on a line fixed 
 to two piquets before the hut occupied by the white man.^ 
 
 The Commissioners themselves have seen several mutilated 
 persons. At Coquilhatville they interrogated Epondo and Ikabo. 
 Epondo had his left hand cut off, and Ikabo his right. Mr. Clark, 
 at Ikoko, presented Mputila, of Yembe, with the right hand am- 
 putated. The Rev. Lower, at Ikau, brought before the Commis- 224 
 sion ImpK>nge, of N'Songo, a boy of apparently ten years, who 
 
 ^See Consul Casement's account of his interview with the com- 
 munity from which these witnesses were evidently brought. [Africa, 
 No. I (1904), p. 61.1 
 
 D 
 
v/as deprived of the rig-ht hand and of the left foot. The Rev. 
 Harris showed the Commission, at Baringa, a person named 
 Isekosu, and the woman Boali, the former with the rig^ht hand 
 amputated, and the latter with the right foot. 
 
 Epondo told the Commission that he had lost his left hand 
 while hunting- with his master. Imponge declared that in his in- 
 fancy, certain sentinels having- made an incursion into his village, 
 his father fled, carrying- him in his arms, and at a g;iven moment 
 abandoned him in the bush that he mig-ht run more quickly; a sen- 
 tinel saw him, and cut off his right hand and his left foot in order 
 to g^et possession of the copper rings which he carried on his wrist 
 and on his ankle. This story is confirmed by the father. The 
 woman Boali said that a capita, to whom she had refused to yield 
 herself, felled her with his gun, and, believing* her to be dead, 
 cut off her right foot to obtain possession of the ring which 
 encircled her ankle. The three other mutilated persons told a 
 story which may be condensed as follows : '* The soldiers (or 
 ^^.^ sentinels) came to make war in our village; I was wounded 
 and fell lifeless to the ground; a soldier (or sentinel), believing 
 me to be dead, cut off my hand." M. Monney, chef de poste at 
 Bikoro, said that he had seen, apart from Mola, three other 
 natives who had the right hand amputated and who had made 
 an identical statement. 
 , Fromi the testimony, taken as a whole, it follows that the 
 
 ' mutilation of corpses is an ancient custom^ which has not, in the 
 
 eyes of the natives, the character of profanation which it pre- 
 sents to us. Mutilation is often resorted to with the object of 
 obtaining a trophy, or a tangible proof of death. Thus, recently, 
 a native of Wala brought to the mission at Baringa, and after- 
 wards to the factory of Abir, a child's foot and hand, which he 
 had cut off as evidence of the murder of the child by a sentinel.^ 
 Several days afterwards the natives of N'Songo brought to Mrs. 
 
 ^The missionaries, without exception, deny that the mutilation of 
 y corpses in the manner described above is the native custom on 
 
 the Congo. The most experienced among them have never seen or 
 heard of such a custom. In early days skulls ornamented the huts 
 of the chiefs, and in some districts the lower jaw was taken as a 
 trophy after death. Necklaces of human teeth have been seen, but 
 it is the universal testimony of the missionaries that the practice of 
 cutting off hands and feet is very recent, and has been devised by the 
 sentries in order to prove to their white chiefs that they have not 
 failed to take life. 
 
 See the confirmation of this statement in Consul Casement's 
 report, which also contains much independent testimony as to the 
 prevalence of mutilation in the districts which he visited, especially 
 in the domain of the notorious La Lulanga company. [Africa, No. i 
 (1904), pp. 34, 43, 54-56.] 
 
 2 This man stated to Mr. Stannard and to Mrs. Harris, with every 
 evidence of truth, that his child had been cut up by the sentries of 
 the Ahir, and that he rushed forward and seized the hand and foot 
 in order that he might bring them to the rubber agent as evidence of 
 
51 
 
 Harris two hands, which they had cut off, declaring that they 
 belong-ed to men who had been killed by the sentinels. In 1902 
 a native came to the magistrate at Coquilhatville to denounce 
 the murder of a relation killed in a quarrel, and in support of his 226 
 statement he produced the hand of the defunct, which he had 
 cut off and smoked. It is not astonishing that the black sol- 
 diers of the Force puhlique have not immediately abandoned this 
 inveterate native custom, or that they should sometimes bring 
 to their officers these bloody trophies of their warlike valour. 
 It is more than probable that, at the beginning of the occupa- 
 tion, certain white officers tolerated this custom, with the 
 eminently regrettable result which has been already indicated, 
 viz., the mutilation of living persons that soldiers or sentinels 
 had believed dead. 
 
 The mutilations of the boy Imponge, and of the woman 
 Boali, the work of avaricious sentinels, had for its motive theft. 
 Apart from these two cases, it appears that the mutilations have 
 not partaken of the nature of torture inflicted willingly and know- 
 ingly. However that may be, one point is beyond doubt — the 
 white man has never inflicted, or caused to be inflicted, by way 
 of punishment for shortcoming in imposts or for any other 
 cause, such mutilations on living natives. No fact of this sort 
 has been indicated by any witness, and in spite of all pur 
 investigations none has been brought to light. 
 
 the cruelty of his sentries. Mr. Stannard visited the spot at a later 
 date, and was shown the large blood-stained leaves where the child 
 had been cut up. 
 
52 
 
 IV.-THE CONCESSIONS. 
 
 As we have just seen, it is on the portions of territory ex- 
 ploited by the concessionaire companies that the gravest abuses 
 
 227 are committed. By concession is understood the right accorded 
 to commercial companies, by a title burdened with certain condi- 
 tions, to collect for their own profit certain products of the 
 domain of the State. The principal concessionaire companies 
 are the Societe Anversoise du Commerce au Congo (basin of the 
 Mongala), the Abir (basins of the Lopori and of the Maringa), 
 the Isangi (taken recently on lease by the Abir), the Comptoir 
 Commercial Congolais (established in the basin of the Kwango). 
 
 Other commercial companies, such as the Compagnie du 
 Lomami, the Societe Anonyme Beige pour le Commerce du Haut- 
 Congo (concession in the Busira), and the Comite special du 
 Katanga^ exploit the territories of which they are proprietors. 
 In exchange for the right of exploitation, the State has re- 
 ceived a considerable proportion (most frequently the half) of 
 the shares of these companies. 
 
 This method of development was imposed by circumstances 
 on the State, which had not at its disposal the personnel and the 
 resources necessary to develop a territory so immense. It 
 found itself compelled to appeal to private enterprise, and it 
 gladly accepted the co-operation of financiers who did not hesi- 
 tate to risk their capital in hazardous enterprises. But, under 
 the conditions of native life, the development of the forests of 
 the domain cannot be conducted in accordance with the ordinary 
 
 228 law of sup]>ly and demand, especially after the territories sur- 
 rounding the villages have been exhausted. Complusion is 
 therefore resorted to, and the State has delegated to the con- 
 cessionaire companies a portion of its powers in the matter of 
 taxation, including the exercise of compulsion. By the decree 
 of i8th November, 1903, the Governor-General is empowered 
 to commission commercial agents to levy an impost of forty 
 hours of work per month; but before this act was passed, the 
 different companies had already compelled the native to collect, 
 for their profit, the fruits of the domain, observing always the 
 principle of payment.^ 
 
 It is the way in which the companies have used the right 
 of compulsion, which is the source of the greater number of 
 abuses existing on their territory. Their aim is simply com- 
 
 * On the rate of payment see Additional Note B — Taxation, p. 86. 
 
53 
 
 mercial and not humanitarian or civilising. ^ Their officers act 
 in a double capacity — as commercial agents, greedy of gain and 
 stimulated by considerable premiums, and as functionaries, 
 charged with the collection of imposts. The vague character 229 
 of the tax in kind, even under the decree of the i8th November, 
 1903, permits the agent to demand from the native a maximum 
 which is never attained, and which leaves considerable room for 
 unreasonableness in the agents. As the superior officers and the 
 directors of the companies receive still larger premiums than 
 their assistants, it can hardly be expected that they will exercise 
 a wise control on the acts of the latter. Finally, the choice 
 of commercial companies in the matter of agents is limited, and 
 those who offer themselves do not always present sufficient 
 guarantees for their intelligence, morality, or tact. 
 
 The supervision of the State over these conceded territories 
 
 ^ No language can convey an adequate idea of the hardship of the 
 rubber tax, not only on the concessions, but in the Domaine privd. 
 Beside this the food and labour taxes sink into insignificance. Certain 
 towns in the Mongala district were in 1904 set free from imposts in 
 food on account of the removal of the military camp at Umangi, and 
 a tax in rubber was substituted. The inhabitants look on the change 
 with horror. " Rubber," they say, "is death." They hate the tax 
 and only submit to it through fear. The testimony of the mission- 
 aries in the concession of the Ahir is similar. The natives do not 
 complain so much of the low rate of payment, but because " there 
 is no rest from the work, and no end to it, save death." 
 
 If it ends in death, it certainly means slavery while it lasts. At 
 Bongandanga, in this same concession of Ahir, Consul Casement 
 saw 242 men marched into the station in a long file, guarded by 
 sentries armed with knives and spears. They were penned behind 
 a barricade, and marched up one by one to the white agent to have 
 their rubber weighed. Thence they were taken to a shed where they 
 cut up the rubber. He saw eighty to a hundred men at work in this 
 shed under the eye of sentries, whose arms were ever held in readi- 
 ness. Finally, they carried the rubber to the drying house, where 
 they set it out on shelves, still under the supervision of their guards. 
 If the rubber came short in weight they were marched to the 
 " maison des otages," an euphemistic name for the prison. The 
 Consul counted, on a subsequent visit, fifteen men and youths en- 
 gaged in making mats, who were, he was informed, purging the 
 offence of the previous day. {Africa, No. i (1904), p. 48.] 
 
 At the station near Lake Leopold II., in the Domaine de la 
 Couronne, which has already been referred to, in the days of the late 
 notorious agent, natives who brought in a shortage of rubber were ruth- 
 lessly shot down — sometimes being placed in rows behind one another 
 to show how far one Albini rifle-bullet would carry through their bodies. 
 Their villages were visited by sentinels, and men were shot down 
 while preparing their food against a visit to the forest, in order to 
 hasten the movements of the rest. No wonder the refugees from 
 this district, whom Consul Casement saw near Bolobo, declared that, 
 though they loved their country and would fain go back, they were 
 ** going to stay in this country where there was no rubber. ^^ 
 [Africa, No. i (1904), pp. 60-64, and letter of the Rev. A. E. Scrivener 
 in Regions Beyond for February, 1904.] 
 
54 
 
 ought therefore to be re-enforced. In the immense territory 
 of the SocUU VAbir^ which includes the basin of the Lopori and 
 the Maringa and extends even to the River Congo, there is 
 only one agent of the State — the commandant of the police corps 
 stationed at Basankusu. Notwithstanding the fact that he is an 
 officer of police, he has never informed the superior authority 
 of any illegalities committed in the zone under his supervision. 
 His action is always limited to the repression of native revolts 
 against the agents of the company, or to bringing the refractory 
 villagers back to their work; and it is to be assumed that he 
 
 230 believes he has no other mission to fulfil, for the instructions 
 sent him always refer to this subject. The Commissioners of 
 the district of the Equator have made the circuit of this region, 
 but they have generally limited themselves to the establishment 
 of taxes. Thrice only have magistrates visited the concession 
 to enquire into complaints; they have been compelled to travel 
 on the company's boats, and sometimes they have been under 
 the necessity of accepting the hospitality of the agents against 
 whom the charges have been made. No wonder that the com- 
 pany considers herself to be absolute mistress in her own 
 house, and that the laws of the State are openly disregarded. 
 
 The ideal remedy for this situation would be, that the State 
 should confine herself to her own role and should not part with 
 the smallest portion of her sovereign rights, but should herself 
 perform the duty which rests upon her to civilise the country 
 and to provide for its moral and material development; that she 
 should confine herself to collecting a tax on products collected 
 or exported, and leave to commercial men the exploitation of the 
 natural riches of the country. But the difficulty of getting the 
 native to work makes it impossible to propose an experiment 
 in this direction. 
 
 231 But the State must not extend the existing concessions or 
 grant new ones. The existing companies may continue to 
 collect from the natives the product of forty hours* work, which 
 they owe to the State by way of tax; but the Government should 
 withhold from them the power of compulsion, which has, in the 
 liands of commercial agents, given occasion for so much abuse, 
 and which will continue so to do, for it is evident that the delega- 
 tion of the right of compulsion implies the authorisation of arms 
 •and of prisons, and the power to direct expeditions for the arrest 
 «of recalcitrant contributors. The power of compulsion should 
 •rest with the functionaries of the State only. The State ought, 
 moreover, to exercise the most severe supervision over the com- 
 l>anies, and to instal in the concessions tribunals composed of 
 t^ualified magistrates {magistrats de carriere); it should organise 
 the public services, and notably the posts, transports, and 
 medical and hospital aid. 
 
 232 If, in spite of all this, the abuses indicated should continue, 
 the State's line of conduct is clear. The concessions cannot be 
 withdrawn without the payment of an indemnity, but the com- 
 
55 
 
 mission to collect the native taxes depends on the goodwill of 
 the State and is essentially revocable; its vi^ithdrawal would im- 
 mediately render the concessions worthless, and the fear of such 
 a measure would stimulate the companies to the strict execu- 
 tion of their obligfations. These companies have done nothing" 
 to ameliorate the lot of the native in the districts which they 
 occupy. It is rational and just that the State, which has accorded 
 to them the power of collecting the native tax for their own 
 profit, should impose upon them, corresponding charges in the 233 
 interest of the public service. 
 
 In certain districts where no concession has been granted, 
 the native collects the produce of the domain for commercial 
 companies, under the influence of an indirect compulsion. These 
 are regions in which the State, by the decree of the 30th October, 
 1892, has abandoned to private individuals the exploitation of 
 india-rubber. In the basin of the Kasai, numerous companies 
 have been syndicated and have formed the Co7npagnie du Kasai. 
 The agents of that company having no longer been commis- 
 sioned to raise the tax, they can only collect the rubber and other 
 products of the forest by direct treaty with the native. But if 
 the native is entirely free to collect or not to collect, to sell or 
 not to sell, india-rubber, he finds himself, as a matter of fact, 
 at least in the basin of the Sankuru, indirectly compelled to 
 collect this product. He is subjected to an impost by the State 
 which must be paid in the local money called croisettey which 
 can only be procured from the factors, who demand india-rubber 
 in exchange. 
 
 This system lends itself to certain abuses. The quantity 234 
 of rubber which the company requires in exchange for a croisette 
 is more or less arbitrary. The factor, who knows that the native 
 will do no work after he has procured sufficient to pay his tax, 
 is careful, most of the time, to pay him with sundry merchandise 
 other than croisettes. The payment made to the native appears 
 to be inferior to that allowed by the State, under the same con- 
 ditions, to the collectors in the Domaine prive^ whereas the 
 quantity of india-rubber required is greater. 
 
 In other regions, notably in Lulonga and in the district situ- 
 ated between the mouth of the Lomami and Stanleyville, the 
 factor buys from the native directly the india-rubber collected by 
 him. No tax is imposed, nevertheless he feels himself obliged 
 to collect rubber for the factories. The following fact shows 
 that the relations between the factor and the native are not con- 
 sidered by the latter to be of a commercial nature : In the neigh- 
 bourhood of Stanleyville, the blacks offered to the agent of a 
 Dutch house to sacrifice all remuneration, on condition that 
 the company would reduce to one half the quantity of 
 rubber demanded. Nevertheless, the evil results of the system 
 are less in territories where the competition of several companies 
 keeps remuneration at a reasonable rate, than in those where 235 
 
S6 
 
 only one company exists. Thus the Commissioners have re- 
 ceived no complaint in the neigrhbourhood of the Falls, where 
 four companies have established their headquarters, and the 
 Revs. Stapleton and Millman, missionaries of the B.M.S., at 
 Yakusu, have expressed their entire satisfaction with regard to 
 the material and moral condition of the country. The inhabi- 
 tants, said Mr. Stapleton, compare the present situation with 
 that of the period of Arab dominion, and the result of the com- 
 parison is entirely favourable to the former. 
 
 On the Lulonga, on the other hand, abuses were complained 
 of analogous to those indicated; illegal methods of constraint 
 and the system of sentinels flourished. The whip was habitually 
 employed when the Commission of enquiry was on the ground, 
 as the factors themselves acknowledged. 
 
 The conclusion must be drawn that all over the Congo, in 
 spite of certain appearances to the contrary, the native only 
 collects india-rubber under compulsion, direct or indirect. In a 
 few districts only can rubber be procured by the regular play of 
 supply and demand. But, as the contrary is affirmed, there is 
 236 room for the State to abandon, by way of experiment, in one 
 or more of the rubber districts, its incontestable right to the 
 product of the domain. The merchants who should establish 
 themselves there might treat directly with the native, who should 
 be exonerated from all tax, and should only be tempted to work 
 by the wage offered. This experiment would furnish informa- 
 tion which would be useful in the future; but in order that it 
 may not be abortive, the State should exercise the most scrupu- 
 lous care that no constraint is exercised upon the native. It 
 should, moreover, facilitate as much as possible the settlement 
 in the district of a great number of merchants, by ceding to them, 
 at a low rate, the necessary land for the building of their fac- 
 tories. 
 
57 
 
 V-DEPOPULATION. 
 
 Several witnesses have drau^n the attention of the Com- 
 mission to the depopulation, which they declare to exist 
 in certain districts specially well known to them. The 
 Commission has been unable to form any judgment 
 from its own observation, but, accepting the data of 
 Stanley, it is certain that a great portion of the popu- 
 lation must have disappeared,^ for between Stanley Pool and 
 New Antwerp, and even higher up, the banks of the river are 
 almost deserted. It is easy to understand how the riverine popu- 237 
 lations, first affected by the requisitions of the white man, with- 
 drew themselves from his imposts and took refuge on the 
 French bank, or in other parts of the territory where they sup- 
 posed that the tax could not reach them. Sometimes the popula- 
 tion has been drained by frequent enlistments of soldiers and 
 workmen; such has been the lot of the villagers situated down 
 the river from New Antwerp. 
 
 The missionaries have also expressed the opinion that, in cer- 
 tain districts where military expeditions have been numerous, 
 and where the impositions, unevenly divided, weigh too heavily 
 
 ^ There is abundant testimony as to the extent of the depopulation. 
 Consul Casement knew the Lukolela district in 1887, and his esti- 
 mate is that then the population numbered 5,000. On his return in 
 1903, he reckoned it at 600 (page 29). The Rev. John Whitehead's 
 figures may not cover quite the same area, but they are even worse. 
 In 1891 he estimated at 6,000 a population, a census of which, taken 
 in 1903, gave 352. 
 
 Three towns which Consul Casement visited, but which he does 
 not name, some distance higher up the river, the population of which 
 he had formerly estimated at 4,000 to 5,000, have entirely disappeared. 
 Their place is taken by a camp d^ instruction belonging to the State 
 (page 29). 
 
 The Rev. J. H. Weeks gave evidence before the Commission with 
 regard to a dozen or more towns in the neighbourhood of Monsembe. 
 In 1890 these had a population of 7,000; the State census of 1Q04 
 totalled up to 551. 
 
 Consul Casement schedules, on p, 70 of his report, fourteen vil- 
 lages in the neighbourhood of Lake Tumba. In 1893 the aggregate 
 population was 12,320; in 1903 it was 1,610. 
 
 The Rev. Somerville Gilchrist estimates that eight or ten years 
 ago the population of certain of the riverine towns on the Lulonga 
 and tributaries was, "at a low estimate, 25,000; now, on a wide 
 estimate, there are only 4,000 inhabitants." {Official Organ C.R.A.y 
 December, 1905, p. 3.) 
 
 On the almost complete desolation of the district east of Lake 
 Leopold II, as reported by Mr. Scrivener, see footnote to Section 196. 
 
58 
 
 on certain villag-es, anxiety and consequent depression have re- 
 sulted in depopulation; the natives, losing- conjfidence, have only 
 constructed provisional shelters, vi^hich have scarcely protected 
 them from the inclemency of the weather; on the least alarm they 
 fled to the bush and to the islands on the river, whence a con- 
 siderable mortality has resulted. Messrs. Weeks and Gilchrist 
 thus explain the great diminution in the population of the river 
 banks, and at the mouth of the Lulong-a. Mr. Clark explained 
 the depopulation of the district of Lake Tumba by numerous 
 23S wars with the State. The Commission has already indicated 
 the disastrous effects of portagfe, and has shown that excessive 
 work imposed on the natives in the neighbourhood of certain 
 large stations has had the effect of depopulating the country. 
 
 An element which must not be neglected, as far as the riverine 
 populations are concerned, is the prohibition of the slave trafiic 
 which flourished on the river. The State, in putting an end to 
 this traffic, struck a mortal blow at the prosperity of the slave- 
 trading populations, of which a large portion have disappeared 
 from the river with the commerce on which they lived. 
 
 All these causes of depopulation almost disappear in presence 
 of the ravages made in recent years by smallpox and sleep-sick- 
 ness. ^ Epidemics of smallpox have decimated the population in 
 certain districts, and their fatal eft'ects are increased by the 
 native habit of abandoning, in the forest, those who have been 
 attacked by the malady, and who, left to themselves without 
 care or nourishment, soon die. The terrible scourge of sleep- 
 sickness, for which science has not yet found any remedy, has 
 followed in its devastating march the banks of the great river, 
 and has begun to penetrate into the interior. 
 
 The State has set itself to combat this double scourge. It 
 
 ^The missionaries unanimously dissent from the conclusions of 
 the Commission as to the causes of depopulation. Great as the 
 ravages of sleep-sickness are, it only accounts for a small proportion 
 of the decrease, which in many places had set in before this malady 
 was known. The native is peculiarly sensitive to climatic influences, 
 and exposure brings on lung and intestinal troubles. It is to such 
 diseases that by far the greater number succumb. 
 
 These are brought on by exposure in the forest, where the people 
 are detained by the constant pressure of taxation, or where they hide 
 to escape from their taskmasters. The natives readily fall before any 
 ailment by which they are attacked, through mental depression and 
 scarcity of food. There are many districts in which the food supply 
 is practically exhausted, and where, in complying with the incessant 
 demands of the State, the natives are famished. Moreover, they are 
 so disheartened that they no longer build as in the old days, but are 
 content to drag out the brief remainder of their lives in the wretched 
 shelter of their miserable huts. 
 
 Military expeditions, in which women and children as well as men 
 have been ruthlessly shot down, and the constant cruelty of the 
 black guards in the forest, on the road, and in the prisons, account 
 for a long tale of victims, and the natives have frequently exchanged 
 the yoke of their oppressors for the milder rule of France or Portugal. 
 
59 
 
 has instructed its medical officers to vaccinate all the black per- 
 sonnel of the stations, and even the inhabitants of the native vil- 239 
 lagfes, and hospitals have been erected for the sick. The State 
 subsidises the Institut bacteriologique de Leopoldville, where 
 savants are occupied in seeking* out the causes of the mysterious 
 sleep-sickness. Catholic and Protestant missions seek to con- 
 fine, as much as possible, the ravages of the malady, by isolating- 
 the blacks who have been attacked, in sanatoria, on the islands 
 of the river or in remote places. Dr. Royal Dye, of the Bolengi 
 Mission, has made some interesting- experiments which promise 
 g"ood results. The whole world has followed with interest the 
 expedition org-anised by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medi- 
 cine, one of whose members. Dr. Dutton, has just succumbed 
 to his task. 
 
 Finally, the practice of abortion is common among native 240 
 women. Protestant missionaries have declared that they avoid 
 having children so that they may be able to flee from military 
 expeditions. Some native superstitions tend further to reduce 
 the birth-rate. 
 
 It must not be concluded from what g-oes before that the 
 population is everywhere on the decrease. We have observed 
 that, notably in the basins of the Lopori and of the Maringa, as 
 well as on the banks of the Congo from Mobeka to the Falls, 
 the villages are numerous and populous, and young children are 
 to be seen in considerable numbers. 
 
6o 
 
 VL~ADOPTED CHILDREN. 
 
 (Les Enfants Recueillis.) 
 
 The decree of the 12th July, 1890 has conferred on the State 
 the g^uardianship of all children set free after the arrest or dis- 
 persion of slave caravans, of fugitive slaves who seek its 
 
 241 protection, of abandoned children or orphans, and of those 
 whose parents fail to fulfil their duties of maintenance and edu- 
 cation. 
 
 I. State Colonies. — Article 2 of the decree enacts that agri- 
 cultural and industrial colonies shall be created, where the chil- 
 dren above described shall be gathered together. School 
 colonies have been created at Boma and at New Antwerp; the 
 first important step has thus been taken by the State towards the 
 establishment of public education. The utility of these nur- 
 series of blacks is obvious, for from them the State draws excel- 
 lent servants, military and civil, clerks, interpreters, and artisans 
 of every class. The children remain under the guardianship of 
 the State until the age of twenty-five years. The programme 
 of studies is well conceived. The day is divided between 
 classes, military exercises, and manual labour. Twelve years is 
 the maximum at which children may be admitted, and a three 
 
 242 years' course of study follows. Those who show special apti- 
 tudes are, at the end of the first or second year, exempted from 
 military exercises. At the end of the third year a final sorting- 
 out takes place; some are drawn into the Force puhlique, while 
 others enter the administration of the State. 
 
 The Commission has examined with special attention the 
 questions which are raised by the decree of 12th July, 1890, and 
 while they find the principle of the institution excellent, they 
 are compelled to admit that serious charges may be formulated 
 against certain aspects of the system as it actually exists. The 
 slave trade having been abolished, the school colonies depend 
 for their supply on friendless, abandoned, or orphaned children; 
 but, according to native ideas, infants of this class are rare. 
 Orphaned of father or mother, the young black is hardly ever 
 abandoned by his relatives, and it is not a rare thing to hear a 
 black speak of his fathers and his mothers, by which he means 
 his uncles and his aunts, who acquire rights in regard to him and 
 towards whom he performs filial duties. These relatives feel 
 themselves aggrieved if the child whom they have brought up 
 is taken from them, and the child himself suffers by separation 
 
 243 from his natural protectors. The State incurs the reproach of 
 recruiting, under colour of helping, against the will of those in- 
 
6i 
 
 terested, the children destined to fill the ranks of the Force puh- 
 lique. 
 
 The second criticism refers only to the school colony at Boma. 
 This establishment is limited in its resources, and its equipment 
 is not what could be wished. The dormitories are constructed 
 of bamboos; the cold night wind penetrates them, and the 
 children are exposed to the terrible chest affections which black 
 races resist so badly; the result is considerable mortality among 
 the pupils of the State. The director of the colony, recognising- 
 that such a situation was intolerable, undertook to replace these 
 dormitories by brick buildings; but, failing the necessary re- 
 sources, he was obliged to employ the young people themselves 
 in the work of construction. Thus, children of six to twelve 
 years are set to bake and carry bricks, their studies are seriously 244 
 interrupted, while they are set to labour which often exceeds 
 their strength. 
 
 It remains to note a much graver fault and one which 
 attaches to the system itself. As has already been indicated, 
 the children remain under the guardianship of the State until 
 their twenty-fifth year. This excessive duration of their tute- 
 lage disregards the conditions of native life. The term of the 
 life of the black hardly ever exceeds thirty or thirty-five years. 
 He is an adult at sixteen years of age; hence the pupils are 
 retained by the State in an almost perpetual minority. It is 
 true that after a three years' course, if they have attained the 
 age of fourteen, the children may be drawn off into the Force 
 publique, or they may leave the colony and carry on the trade 
 or profession which they have learned. But the tutelage of the 
 State continues to weigh upon them and they derive little ad- 
 vantage from the education which they have received. The lot 
 of former colonists, who have become workers for the State or 
 attached to the administration, is still more unfavourable. In 245 
 spite of the work (incomparably harder than that of soldiers) to 
 which they are subjected, and the special aptitudes which they 
 display, these young people are put on the same wage footing 
 as the different grades of the Force puhlique, and the pay which 
 they receive is much inferior to that which they might gain, as 
 free workmen, with an industrial education such as they have re- 
 ceived. In the opinion of the director of the colony, this arrange- 
 ment is disastrous. The State pupils are despised by their com- 
 rades and they receive the nickname of Koloni. The colonists 
 resent this humiliation bitterly and, instead of furnishing the 
 best elements of the population, they become soured rebels, all 
 the more dangerous because they are educated. 
 
 2. Children Adopted by the Missions. — ^Under the terms of 
 the decree of March 4th, 1892, the State has authorised ** the 
 legal representatives of philanthropic and religious associations, 
 to receive into the agricultural and industrial colonies which 
 they direct, the native children whom the law subjects to the 246 
 guardianship of the State." 
 
The Catholic missions stand almost by themselves in profit- 
 ing by this authorisation. Protestants are, in general, hostile 
 to the system of school colonies. The Foreign Christian Mis- 
 sionary Society, of Bolengi, which rears a small number of aban- 
 doned children, forms the only exception among Evangelical mis- 
 sions. ^ Apart from military exercises, these children are sub- 
 jected to the same regime as those under the immediate control 
 of the State, and, with the exception that they are thoroughly 
 well housed, the criticisms already cited apply to them. The 
 Commissioners visited the classrooms and workshops, and they 
 recognise the zeal with which the missionaries undertake the 
 instruction and industrial training of their pupils, who generally 
 look healthy. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is certain that the missions do not always 
 display prudence in the selection of the children which the State 
 confides to their charge. Thus in certain establishments, situ- 
 ^47 ated to the south of Stanley Pool, the Commission recently 
 charged with the inscription of children newly adopted, makes 
 the following statements : (i) Many children had obviously 
 passed the maximum age of twelve years; certain even were 
 married, and the Fathers, on installing them at the mission, had 
 forbidden them henceforward to see their wives; (2) many others 
 were neither abandoned nor orphaned; several were demanded 
 by their parents. It follows, from information received, that 
 the monks, covering themselves with the authority of the State, 
 enter on a veritable recruiting of children. Thus applied, the 
 decree of 1890 becomes, in the hands of the missionaries, a 
 method of acquiring abundant labour easily, and the philan- 
 thropic object of the legislation is gravely compromised. 
 
 In the course of a judicial enquiry made in the same region, 
 numerous natives declared that they had been retained at work 
 at the mission, against their will. Several complained that on 
 a fruitless attempt to regain their villages, they had been put 
 in chains and had suffered the punishment of the chicotte. 
 
 Not content to keep at the missions a very considerable num- 
 ber of young people who do not fulfil the conditions demanded 
 248 ^y ^^^ decree, the Fathers establish groups of fifteen or twenty 
 in hamlets surrounded by plantations, which may be met with 
 in large numbers in the district, and which take the name of 
 fermes chapelles. The inhabitants of these posts are kept by 
 the State in the strictest tutelage. They possess no private 
 property; the products of their cultivation, the small cattle which 
 they raise, are in general destined for the mission. They rarely 
 
 ^ The position here requires to be defined a little more accurately. 
 The Protestant missions have indeed no school-colonies, but many 
 of the missionaries have a few children in their own homes for whom 
 they care. It is needless to say that these children are perfectly free, 
 and are at liberty to return to their own towns should they wish to 
 do so. 
 
63 
 
 receive sanction to marry or to return to their villages. The 
 greater portion of the natives who people the fermes chapelles 
 are neither orphans nor labourers engaged by contract. They 
 are demanded from the chiefs, who dare not refuse them; and 
 only compulsion, more or less disguised, prevents them from 
 returning. Thus ihe system tends to illegal proceedings, which 
 appear to have only the most remote connection with the applica- 
 tion of the decree on abandoned children. 
 
 The Commissioners feel that the question here raised is a 
 grave one. They conceive that a civilising State may set itself 
 up as the guardian of all abandoned children without distinction 
 above a certain age, and may charge itself with the education 
 of the children, following rules and principles which it may think 
 good and of a nature to attain the end which it has in view. 
 The law, as it stands, has not this import. It applies only to 
 children actually abandoned, who cannot supply their own needs, 
 and who have no relation in the village able to maintain 249 
 them. The duration of the guardianship of the State ought to 
 be considerably reduced, and pupils having attained the age of 
 sixteen years, which is that of legal majority, ought to be com- 
 pletely discharged from its care. But, in the judgment of the 
 Commission, the law might quite well be extended by a decree 
 of compulsory education. The adult native who does not enlist 
 as a soldier, or who is not engaged as a workman of the State, 
 escapes entirely from the civilising influence of the State or of 
 the Catholic or Protestant missions. It goes without saying 
 that the father of a native family, unless compelled, will never 
 send his child to school. ^ The Commission therefore proposes 
 that the law should oblige the heads of families residing within 
 a certain radius of the missions, to send their children to the 
 mission-school for several hours per day, up to an age to be 
 determined, and which should not exceed fourteen years. Those 
 children should not be interned, and should, under no pretext 
 of industrial training, be employed at work which exceeds their 
 strength. Moreover, at the express demand of the parent, the 
 children should be exempted from religious education. ^ 
 
 ^This statement is contradicted by the experience of all Protestant 
 missions, whose schools are filled without compulsion and without 
 bribe. The native very speedily comes to appreciate the advantages 
 of education, and is generally willing that his child should enjoy 
 them. The missionaries of the B.M.S. at Yakusu are constantly 
 waited upon by deputations from villages within a radius of seventy 
 miles, who beg that teachers may be sent to them, and who readily 
 promise to maintain them and to erect houses for their accommodation. 
 
 'It need hardly be said that the Protestant missions could not 
 accede to the proposals formulated by the Commissioners. They 
 doubtless recognise that the education of the children is a very impor- 
 tant element in their work ; but, as their primary object is the propo- 
 gation of the Gospel, they could not accept scholars who were ex- 
 cluded from religious teaching, and for this very reason it would be 
 impossible for the missions to accept a subsidy from the State. 
 
64 
 
 2^0 VII.-RECRUITING OF SOLDIERS AND OF 
 
 WORKMEN. 
 
 I. Soldiers. — The criticisms which have been directed against 
 the Congo State in regard to the recruiting of the Force publique^ 
 and which declare that their methods differ little from those of 
 slave traders, are unjust and do not apply to the actual facts. 
 
 The regular army is recruited by voluntary engagement and 
 by annual levies. The Governor-General determines, year by 
 year, the districts in which the levy shall be made, and the pro- 
 portions to be furnished by each. The method followed is 
 settled by the Commissioner of the district in agreement with 
 the native chiefs, and is, where possible, by the drawing of lots 
 (Decree of 30th July, 1891, Articles i, 2, 4). This decree is 
 applied with the exception of the method of drawing by lot. 
 The chiefs generally nominate the men who must form the con- 
 tingent. 
 
 251 The right of the State to demand military service from its 
 subjects is one which cannot be contested, and which simply 
 applies a principle followed by most European legislations. 
 
 The military life has a great attraction for the native; it 
 responds to his nature, his aptitude, and his tastes. Conscrip- 
 tion is the form of contribution to the public interest, to which 
 the blacks are most quickly and most easily accustomed. Volun- 
 tary engagements are numerous, and many militiamen re-engage 
 after having completed their term of service. The soldiers of 
 the Force publique are in general well treated and well cared for, 
 and they have been the object of every solicitude by the State. 
 They receive a daily wage of 21 centimes; the soldier's wife may 
 accompany him wherever he goes, and, indeed, a recent circular 
 of the Governor-General suggests that new conscripts should 
 be encouraged to choose a wife from their own country before 
 
 252 joining the company. The Commission has been struck with 
 the cleanliness and good condition of the cabins inhabited by 
 the households of soldiers. They have only praise for the ex- 
 cellent bearing of the troops. The complaints which they have 
 received are few, and only touch matters of secondary import- 
 ance. On the other hand, some State workmen, heard by the 
 Commission express their regret that they had not been admitted 
 into the Force puhlique^ in accordance with the conditions of their 
 engagement. The complaint relates to the transferring of one 
 portion of the annual contingent of recruits into workmen, em- 
 ployed mainly on the fortifications. The Governor-General has 
 
6s 
 
 recently suppressed the order of soldats travailleurSy but these 
 recruits, instead of being drawn into the Force publique^ or sent 
 home, have been entered as simple workmen for the rest of their 
 term. The Commission has intimated to the competent authori- 
 ties the irregularity of this situation. 
 
 The Commission is convinced that military education is the 
 factor of civilization which has most sensibly influenced the adults 
 of the Congo. Military service modifies the savage nature of 253 
 the natives subjected to it, and its influence persists among the 
 old soldiers, who can be recognised at once by their more dig- 
 nified bearing, by the way in which they salute, the care with 
 which they dress themselves, and the more comfortable dwellings 
 which they build. 
 
 The Commission is far from suggesting that their term with 
 the colours suffices entirely to uproot their savage instincts. On 
 the other hand, soldiers often give way to regrettable excesses, 
 as has already been recorded; but having regard to i ie fact that 
 the missions, which exercise some influence on the young blacks, 
 often see all their efforts to civilise the adult miscarry, it seems 
 that for this end military training is almost the only one that will 
 yield good results. 
 
 The State is also reproached for choosing soldiers among 
 savage and cannibal tribes. Since the State gave up the en- 
 gagement of volunteers from the coast, and recruited its army 
 from its own territory, it has generally drawn its soldiers from 
 the vigorous and warlike tribes of the Haut-Congo^ who lend 
 themselves better to the military service than the populations 
 of the Bas-CongOj brutalised by alcohol and enfeebled by the 254 
 slave trade. True, those natives were savage and often canni- 
 bals, but these qualities apply to the majority of the populations 
 up stream from Stanley Pool. The State had hardly any choice, 
 but recruiting was gradually extended to all the districts, and 
 last year a certain number of militia were drawn from the lower 
 Congo. Firm discipline and constant supervision can alone pre- 
 vent acts of savagery, and the Government, as has been staled, 
 has prohibited the employment of patrols which are not com- 
 manded by white men. A high functionary has further recom- 
 mended the frequent relief of the small garrisons of secondary 
 posts, which are often commanded by inferior agents, and his 
 counsel has been followed. 
 
 2. Workmen. — The State, like individuals, takes into its 
 service natives, whom it employs on diverse works. This class, 
 which is to-day very numerous, is most interesting; residence 
 at the stations produces among the natives the best effect; it is 
 a first contact with European civilization; it generally brings 
 about a sensible transformation of the habits and tastes of the 
 natives. Workmen, like soldiers, but in a less degree, constitute 255 
 a class which is semi-civilized. Engagements made by the 
 State and by non-natives are regulated by the decree of 8th 
 November, 1888, on contracts for hired service; the object is 
 
66 
 
 to safeguard, as effectively as possible, the principle of absolute 
 freedom of eng-agements. The law demands that the contract 
 shall be drawn up in writing- and signed by a competent 
 authority, the signature being appended simply as a 
 witness that the worker understands perfectly the con- 
 ditions of his engagement and that he accepts them 
 freely (Article 13). The order of the ist November, 
 i8qo, appoints, as the authority competent to draw up 
 or sign contracts, the qualified judge of the district (juge de 
 carri<bre), or his deputy, a doctor of law, and only in default 
 of these magistrates is this mission delegated to functionaries 
 of the administration. The contract is limited to seven years, 
 and can only be renewed through the above-mentioned authority. 
 Severe penalties are enacted against masters or patrons who 
 
 256 contravene the conditions, as well as against the master or the 
 black, who refuses to execute the clauses of a contract legally 
 settled. On the lower river, where this law is generally applied, 
 no complaint has been made in the interests of the blacks. The 
 magistrates charged to sign the contracts regard it as a point of 
 honour to carry out the duty conscientiously, to assure them- 
 selves that the native engages himself freely and that he under- 
 stands the conditions of his engagement. 
 
 On the Upper Congo, on the contrary, nothing but the letter 
 of the law is respected, and that for two chief reasons : 
 
 In the first place, the magistrates there are extremely re- 
 stricted in number, and there are immense regions where none 
 resides. To present his certificate of labour for the signature 
 of a magistrate, the native would sometimes be compelled to 
 make a voyage of several mionths. It therefore frequently 
 happens that the contract is not drawn up; more often, the 
 contract is drawn up and signed by the administrative authority 
 only. Sometimes the contracts present the appearance of 
 regularity : signed by the Commissicner of the district, 
 
 257 or the chief of the region, himself a party to the 
 contract, they are countersigned, in the absence of a 
 deputy, a doctor of law, by another functionary of the adminis- 
 tration, in his capacity as deputy of this magistrate. The Com- 
 mission has frequently come across certificates with twO' signa- 
 tures in the same hand, the territorial chief having, in the name 
 of the State, engaged the native, had himself ratified the con- 
 tract as deputy magistrate. 
 
 It thus happens that the law is an illusion, that in most cases 
 the natives of the Upper Congo, in spite of all precautions taken 
 by the law, find themselves engaged under a contract, the con- 
 ditions of which have never been explained to them. Tliis posi- 
 tion can only be remedied by the appointment of a larger num- 
 ber of qualified magistrates, and some of these should go on 
 circuit periodically in the district under their jurisdiction, to 
 supervise the execution of the laws and to sign the contracts of 
 workers. But even then all the diflftculties will not disappear. 
 
67 
 
 In certain regions it is nearly impossible to find natives who 
 freely consent to engage themselves as workmen. The some- 
 what lucrative employment of a domestic servant, or *' &oy,'* 
 forms an exception, and crews of steamers are readily recruited, 
 for the employment affords excellent occasion for travelling 
 without expense, and for trading. But apart from these two 
 cases, it is seldom that a free man engages himself to the State 258 
 on his own initiative, a fact which will be readily understood 
 from the observations already formulated in regard to the indo- 
 lence of the negro and the fewness of his needs. ^ 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, frequently to have recourse to 
 compulsion, and chiefs are compelled to furnish workmen in the 
 same way as they supply soldiers. Sometimes they are de- 
 manded by way of fine or ransom. The Commission has received 
 complaints from several native Batchuas, who had been im- 
 prisoned and afterwards forcibly engaged as workmen, on a 
 day when they came with their impost in chikwangues to the sta- 
 tion of Bikoro. Workmen so recruited are sent to different 
 stations, and are given a certificate {livret)y or sometimes a con- 
 tract drawn up after the regular fashion above indicated, by 
 which they are engaged for a term of three or seven years at a 
 wage varying generally from three to six francs per month, 
 plus their food. 
 
 Forced recruitment is not generally resorted to except in the 
 case of vast enterprises, such as the construction of a railway 
 or works of fortification, when the State is obliged to secure a 
 considerable number of workmen. The Commission found 3,000 
 workers, recruited in the Province Orientale^ employed on the 
 construction of the Stanleyville-Ponthierville section of the rail- 
 way of the Grands-Lacs y among whom few held a regular con- 259 
 tract. ^ With his habitual fatalism, the native soon accommo- 
 dates himself to his new condition; but this does not affect the 
 fact that the law is violated, and a prompt remedy is necessary. 
 In face of the urgency of certain grave undertakings of public 
 utility, the State should proclaim the obligation of the native 
 to participate in these works. In a new country this duty is as 
 imperious as that which is encumbent on all the citizens, to co- 
 operate in the defence of the territory. 
 
 If the point of view of the Commission is adopted, two divi- 
 sions will be made among those who furnish the conscription; the 
 one will serve in the Force puhlique, the other will be employed on 
 important works of public interest, from which the natives them- 
 
 ^ The fact here is probably accurately stated, but the reasons given 
 cannot be accepted ; free natives readily engage themselves to Protes- 
 tant missionaries, and will, indeed, travel a hundred miles to enter 
 their service. (See Additional Note A— Character of the Negro, p. 81.) 
 
 2 It would be well if we had some definite facts in regard to the 
 conditions of employment and the wages of these men. The admis- 
 sions which follow are very grave, and there are no Evangelical mis- 
 sionaries in the neighbourhood to interpret them for us. 
 
68 
 
 selves should reap immediate benefit, such as the construction 
 of roads and railways. Such work ought to be designated by iaw^ 
 and it should be forbidden, under severe {>enalties, to put the 
 recruits, the number of whom should also be fixed by law and 
 
 260 should not exceed the limits of strict necessity, to other employ- 
 ment. 
 
 These proposals will doubtless arouse the facile criticism oi 
 theorists who hold to principles, and who have no regard to 
 practical difficulties; but the Commission has verified the impos- 
 sibility of securing for the State, by voluntary recruiting, the 
 necessary workmen for the execution of great works of public 
 utility. These works cannot be abandoned, and it is impossible 
 to execute them by labour imposed by way of taxation, for 
 they demand regular and constant effort irreconcilable with the 
 principle of the * * forty hours. ' ' The law ought to face the 
 problem, and the agents should not always be left under the 
 necessity of acting illegally. 
 
 The condition of the workers has also been the subject of 
 complaint, notably by the magistrates. 
 
 First of all, with regard to long-term engagements : the in- 
 conveniences of such engagements are peculiarly felt when young 
 
 261 children are in question. The district Commissioners engage, 
 specially for cultivation, children from seven to eight, who 
 find themselves bound for several years in virtue of 
 a contract which perhaps they have accepted voluntarily, but 
 the meaning of which they cannot possibly have understood, 
 and which the functionaries cannot refuse to sign if the children 
 declare that they accept it. There may be some reason for 
 allowing a child to engage himself by contract, but the magis- 
 trate should have power to refuse consent if he thinks that the 
 child acts without discernment, and, in any case, contracts ought 
 never to exceed a term of two years. The precocity of the 
 native should, however, in this connection, be kept in mind, and 
 the fact that his intelligence reaches its maximum at the age of 
 thirteen or fourteen years. 
 
 But even for the adult, the maximum term of seven years 
 permitted by law is excessive. The mean duration of the 
 native's life is much shorter than that of the white man, and this 
 term, of which he scarcely appreciates the duration, absorbs a 
 considerable portion of his life. It should be added, that the 
 price of manual labour and the value of goods, and even of those 
 articles which serve for money, are subject to rapid variations 
 on the Congo, and it often happens at the end of a very brief 
 period, that the conditions of the contract have been greatly 
 modified. 
 
 262 This leads to the important question of the v^^age, which 
 is not always sufficient, especially for those who have a family 
 to keep. It has been asserted, notably in the territory of the 
 Comiti Special du Katangay that the average salary does not 
 yield to the workers the necessary means of subsistence. In* 
 
69 
 
 other more important centres a much higher rate of payment 
 is still insufficient, on account of the clearness of living. Eco- 
 nomic conditions vary from district to district, and this forms a 
 fresh source of complaint. Workers engaged in the regions of 
 the Upper Congo, at the rate of v^^ages current in these districts, 
 find, when they are transferred to the lower Congo, that the 
 wage is altogether insufficient for their new location, and much 
 inferior to that of other workmen in this region. Under these 
 conditions, the magistrate, guardian of the blacks, should have 
 the power to require that the workman's wage shall be brought 
 into line with that of his new fellow-workers. The suggestion has 
 already been made that, as far as possible, payment in cash 
 should be made on the Upper River, where goods or copper 
 rods (mitakos) are now used, for these are frequently subject 
 to depreciation.^ 
 
 The Commissioners further remark on the fact that the work- 263 
 men's villages, unlike the soldiers' camps, are in a very un- 
 satisfactory condition. 
 
 It remains to mention the punishments administered by 
 way of discipline, which form one of the conditions of the work- 
 men's contract. That which is most frequently applied is the 
 whip ichicotte)f the regulation fixing the maximum penalty at 
 fifty strokes, twenty-five of which may be administered in one 
 day. The application of the whip should immediately cease in 
 case of a wound or syncope. ^ No one acquainted with colonial 
 affairs will contest the necessity of corporal punishment, with- 
 out which it would be impossible to maintain discipline among 
 the black personnel of the stations. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the legal restrictions, the use of the 
 chicotte gives rise to certain abuses; recourse is, too frequently 
 had to it without sufficient justification, and the legal limit is 
 surpassed. The Commission has received complaints under this 264 
 head from numerous workpeople. It is difficult to learn the 
 truth from the native, who sometimes fantastically exaggerates 
 the number of strokes that he has received in one day, but it 
 IS undeniable that the chefs de postCy in their desire to inflict 
 
 ' See footnote to Section 156. 
 
 ' The chicotte is a strip of hippo hide, about one inch wide, dried 
 in the sun and twisted like a corkscrew. It is exceedingly hard and 
 the edges cut like knives. When delivered with a professional turn 
 -of the hand — an accomplishment acquired by most sentries — it cuts 
 the fiesh at every stroke. 
 
 Mrs. Ruskin writes : ** Fifty strokes ! How is it that men, boys, 
 and at least one woman have been done to death at Bongandanga by 
 it? I have seen strong men carried away unconscious after it; others 
 with blood dripping from their buttocks all along the road; others 
 unable to go on, sinking on the ground until they could find strength 
 and courage to rise and take a few more steps ! It may be in the 
 law— it is not true in practice." {Official Organ C.R.A. for 
 December, 1905, p. 15.) 
 
 See also the admissions below. 
 
70 
 
 exemplary punishment, often violate the legal prescription. It 
 is equally true that these illegalities are not always prosecuted 
 with desirable vigour; for the administrative authority, impressed 
 with the difficulties which its agents encounter, fear to weaken 
 the authority of the white man m the eyes of the natives. This 
 action is easy to understand, but it is none the less regrettable; 
 if abuses are to be put an end to, the agents must understand 
 that all transgression of the regulations will be suppressed with- 
 out mercy. 
 
 The regulation formally forbids the infliction of the chicotte 
 on women. Some contraventions of this enactment have been 
 verified, but they are rare and isolated facts, and the Govern- 
 ment has never shown any toleration for this abuse. 
 
VIII -ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 265 
 
 In the very beginning, the Independent State created a 
 judicial organisation. At different times the Government has 
 extended and reinforced this organization on account of the 
 new requirements successively demanded by the development 
 of the territory. In general outline the actual position is as 
 follows : 
 
 Civil and commercial affairs come under the province, in 
 the first place, of the Inferior Court of Boma (Tribunal de 
 premiere instance de Boma); in case of appeal, of the 
 Court of Appeal, which also sits at Boma, from which there is 
 a further appeal to the Supreme Council at Brussels. 
 
 Criminal affairs come under the province, in the first in- 
 stance, of the Inferior Court at Boma, and of the territorial 
 tribunals and the councils of war. The Inferior Court and the 
 territorial tribunals take cognizance, within the limits of their 
 respective jurisdictions, of all infractions committed by persons 
 who are not subject to military law, or of those in which civilians 
 and the military are implicated. Infractions committed by 
 Europeans, including the military, where the death penalty 
 applies, are exclusively reserved for the Inferior Court (Tribunal 266 
 de premiere instance du Bas-Congo). The councils of war 
 judge military prisoners, appeal, in criminal matters, being to 
 the Court of Appeal at Boma in all cases tried by the Inferior 
 Court and by the territorial tribunals. Cases judged by the 
 councils of war are, in the event of appeal, submitted to the 
 Council of War of Appeal. Fourteen territorial tribunals 
 actually exist, and a still larger number of councils of war; the 
 judges are generally the same. Officers of the tribunal who 267, 
 exercise their functions '* under the high authority of the 
 Governor-General " cannot prosecute an European without his 
 consent. 
 
 Side by side with the magistrates of the tribunals, there 
 exists on the Congo a large number of judicial officers of police 
 under the supervision of the State Attorney. Decrees and 
 orders fix for each of these functionaries the limits of his 
 province, judicial and territorial. The members of the Court 
 of Appeal, the judge of the Inferior Court, the State Attorney, 
 and his deputies, must be qualified magistrates. They must 
 confine themselves to their judicial functions, and must com- 
 bine certain conditions of age and capacity, being doctors 
 of law and nominated only by decree. Such is not the case 
 with territorial judges, judges of the councils of war, and the 
 deputy magistrates, who need not be qualified, and whom the 
 Governor-General may appoint from among the functionaries 
 of the administrative order. As a matter of fact, the acting 268 
 deputies are almost always doctors of law. At Matadi and 
 Leopoldville alone, the territorial judges are qualified magis- 
 
72 
 
 trates; in all the other tribunals the functions of the judge are 
 entrusted to functionaries who are not magistrates, generally to 
 the district Commissioners. 
 
 The judicial organization of the Independent State will com- 
 pare favourably with that of many older colonies.^ The Com- 
 mission, in the course of its long enquiry, has received no com- 
 plaint relative to the way in which the qualified magistrates fulfil 
 the high and delicate functions which are entrusted to them. It 
 has observed for itself how they are animated by great zeal 
 and acquit themselves with a most praiseworthy impartiality. 
 Nevertheless, three serious criticisms are directed against the 
 actual situation. The first refers to the composition of the 
 tribunals; the second to their number, which is too limited, 
 having regard to the immense extent of the territory; the third, 
 to the dependence in which the officers of the prosecuting 
 magistrate find themselves, vis-a-vis of the administrative 
 authority. These three criticisms will be examined in their 
 order. 
 
 ^This is true of some parts of the State only. The quality of the 
 administration of justice on the Congo has a wide range, and depends 
 on the locality and on the character of the agent for the time being. 
 The experience of the natives on the Lower Congo has been, on the 
 whole, a happy one. Infractions of law or right have been promptly 
 dealt with, and the native with a grievance has no hesitation in bring- 
 ing it to the Commissaire at Tumba. In the district of Stanley Falls, 
 also, the people are sympathetically treated, though they suffer, in 
 important cases, from the grave disadvantages indicated in the fol- 
 lowing sections, due to the distance from Boma. 
 
 The position midway seems to be much more serious. At Bolobo, 
 for example, there is no one to administer justice, and, as Leopold- 
 ville is too far off, thieves and other offenders go unpunished. 
 
 The various accounts give the impression that Coquilhatville is, 
 or was two years ago, the centre of the gravest injustice and the most 
 grievous oppression. Up and down the River Congo from that 
 centre, and up the River Lulonga, matters seem to be very bad. 
 
 It is impossible to quote all the incidents that crop up, at every 
 turn, in the documents; but two grave cases may be referred to in 
 which, even now, though the offences are old, justice has not been 
 done. The records of the trials exhibit the most inexcusable dilatori- 
 ness, and in both cases the culprits are at large. The first is that of 
 a soldier who shot two prisoners at or near Lukolela in August, 1902, 
 reported by the Rev. John Whitehead. The preliminary stages are 
 recorded in Africa, No. i (1904), pp. 67, 68, but as far as this mis- 
 sionary knows the case is not yet closed. The second is that of 
 Lieutenant Massard, a notorious officer, said to have been guilty of 
 gross cruelties in the Domaine -privS, near Lake Leopold II, and who, 
 on the representation of the Commissioners, who seem to have had 
 no doubt as to his guilt, was arrested by the State authorities imme- 
 diately after the enquiry at Bolobo. After considerable delay, he was 
 acquitted at Boma through alleged lack of evidence. He is there- 
 fore again at large, although it is understood that there is to be an 
 appeal. The story is clearly set forth in a letter addressed to Lord 
 Lansdowne by the Secretary of the C.R.A. (See Official Organ for 
 December, 1905.) 
 
73 
 
 It has been indicated that only the territorial judges of the 269 
 BaS'Congo are qualified magistrates. In general, it is the 
 Commissioner of the district who fulfils the function of judge. 
 It is hardly necessary to indicate the inconveniences which may 
 arise from this plurality of offices. The duties of the adminis- 
 trative agents are too numerous to admit of their acquiring 
 that intimate acquaintance with the civil and criminal law which 
 is so important. It has, therefore, been found necessary to re- 
 serve for the Court at Boma the cognisance of the most impor- 
 tant cases, civil and criminal. As the jurisdiction of that Court 
 extends over the whole territory, Europeans cited before it suffer 
 a great loss of time, and are put to considerable expense. But 
 the necessary travelling is specially prejudicial to the blacks. 
 All the magistrates testify that a large number of black wit- 
 nesses, forced to travel from the Haut-Congo to Boma, never 
 see their village again, but die on the journey which is imposed 
 upon them. The resistance of the native to change of condition 
 and climate is, so to speak, nil. Even when they are the objects 
 of the greatest care their ranks are thinned by home-sickness 
 for the great Equatorial forest, and the mortality is increased 270 
 by the fact that, on their journey and at their destination, they 
 are often badly lodged and insufficiently fed. ^ The very name of 
 '* Boma " frightens the native, whom, in many districts it is 
 impossible to persuade to appear before the court. The inhabi- 
 tant of the Upper Congo, cited as a witness, flees to the forest 
 or to the bush. He must be treated as a prisoner, hunted, per- 
 haps chained, or at any rate, constraint must be used to conduct 
 him from his village to the seat of the tribunal. 
 
 As a result, it frequently happens that a native who has been 
 wronged, rather than expose himself to the dangers and fatigues 
 of a journey to Boma, renounces his complaint. Infractions 
 of the law remain ignored, abuses multiply, the discontent of 
 the population increases, and sometimes manifests itself sud- 
 denly in the violence of revolts which the intervention of justice 
 should have prevented. 
 
 Sometimes, also, in the regions where Evangelical missions 
 are established, the black, rather than address himself to the 
 magistrate — his natural protector — is accustomed, when he has 
 a complaint against a factor, a chef de paste or a chef de zone, to 
 go and confide in the missionary, who listens, assists him to the 271 
 best of his ability, and becomes the recipient of all the complaints 
 of a district. Hence the remarkable authority of the missionaries 
 in some parts of the country. They acquire ascendency, not only 
 over the natives subjected to their religious teaching, but over all 
 the villages whose griefs they hear. The missionary becomes, 
 
 ^ A missionary from the district of the Cataracts, on his way to 
 England in May last, saw a party of witnesses at Boma awaiting a 
 trial. They had been there for four months, in a place ** not fit to 
 keep a dog in "; the food was stranpre to them; two of them had 
 died, and another seemed near his end. 
 
74 
 
 for the native of a district, the sole representative of equity and 
 justice. He adds to the ascendency acquired by his religious 
 zeal the prestige which, in the interests of the State, should be- 
 long to the magistrate. ^ 
 
 Another inconvenience, caused by the exclusive province of 
 the Tribunal du Bas-Congo in grave matters, consists in the 
 inevitable delay due to the enormous distance which separates 
 Boma from numerous points of the territory. Before the docu- 
 ments, the witnesses and the prisoners are brought together at 
 the seat of the Tribunal, months and even years elapse. In the 
 meantime, the whites return to Europe, the blacks are not to be 
 found, memories are effaced, and facts transform themselves 
 into legend, with the result that the judges are frequently com- 
 pelled to acquit through lack of material for conviction. 
 
 Analogous drawbacks are attached to civil cases. In the 
 
 272 district of Stanleyville, for example, commercial transactions 
 are numerous, but what a loss of time and what an expense the 
 voyage from Stanleyville to Boma entails ! The Commissioners 
 advise that judges of the administrative order, in territorial 
 tribunals, should be replaced by qualified magistrates. There 
 would be no longer any reason to withdraw civil cases from their 
 decision, or to limit their competence in criminal matters. 
 There would still remain the inconvenience of appeal to Boma; 
 but the Courts of Appeal have, according to law, the power to 
 form a judgment on documentary evidence, and this mode of 
 procedure might become the regular rule, for the evidence of the 
 lower Courts would be drawn up under the control of a qualified 
 magistrate. 
 
 The jurisdiction of the existing territorial tribunals is very 
 extensive, and it would be well to augment the number. This 
 can only be done by degrees; the essential matter is, that the 
 natives over all the territory should have ready access with 
 their complaints to the magistrate. True, they are free to 
 address the judicial officers of police, whose residence Is gene- 
 rally nearer than that of the deputy; but this officer is often an 
 
 273 administrative agent and exercises many functions. He collects 
 the tax, exercises compulsion, imposes forced labour; and it is 
 often with him that the abuse complained of is supposed, rightly 
 or wrongly, to have originated. Moreover, in those immense 
 concessions where the State is only represented by the com- 
 mandant of a police corps, must the native bring his complaint 
 to the agent of the company? 
 
 Some magistrates have suggested that the police officers 
 might be supplied with more precise instructions, but the Com- 
 mission does not think that they can be relied upon. It is to 
 the deputy, who shows praiseworthy zeal in going on circuit 
 
 ^The Evangelical missionary seems to be the only trusted friend 
 of the negro throughout the State. How very serious then is the 
 consideration that immense areas know nothing of him, and that the 
 district which comes under his surveillance is relatively very small ! 
 
75 
 
 for the purposes of receiving complaints and making enquiries, 
 that the native should be able to address complaints; but most 
 frequently there is only one prosecuting magistrate in the court, 
 and he is often compelled to absent himself on official duty during 
 several months. 
 
 Certain magistrates have intimated to the Commission that 274 
 it was difficult, or even impossible, for them to form a court, on 
 account of their own necessary absence or that of the district 
 Commissioner, who fills the office of judge. This state of affairs 
 gives rise to inevitable but regrettable delays. Every court 
 should have two magistrates attached to it, so that, while one 
 may be engaged in making enquiries, the other might carry on 
 the work of the court. Actions would thus be more rapidly 
 enquired into and determined, and the frequent contact of the 
 magistrate with the native would increase the confidence of the 
 latter in the execution of justice and, as a consequence, in the 
 State. The Commissioners, to secure the prompt administra- 
 tion of justice, suggest that all qualified magistrates should 
 have the power to judge certain cases in the absence of the 
 prosecuting magistrate, or of the clerk to the court (greffier). 
 To all such magistrates, on circuit, might be submitted, with- 
 out appeal, petty cases, both criminal and civil. With a simpli- 
 fied procedure, enquiry would be possible at the same hearing. 
 The plaintiff, the prisoner and the witnesses would be on the 
 spot, and, if it were necessary to verify the statements, the judge 
 could do it easily. If the white man had always before him the 
 fear of the supervision of the magistrate, many of the abuses 275 
 and acts of maltreatment, which have at present to be regretted, 
 would not take place. 
 
 The third criticism formulated has regard to the indepen- 
 dence of the magistracy. Here a distinction must be observed. 
 The tribunals and, generally speaking, the judges, enjoy the 
 most absolute independence in giving their decisions. But it 
 is not always so with the deputies. Several have drawn the 
 attention of the Commission to this point. The deputy, when 276 
 he goes on circuit, requires the means of transport, of vic- 
 tualling, and an escort; and he has to depend for them on the 
 Commissioner of the district, who may grant or refuse these re- 
 quirements. The prosecuting magistrate should be empowered 
 to demand ever3'thing that he deems necessary in the exercise 
 of his function. 
 
 It is the moral enfranchisement of the magistrate from his 
 dependence on the administrative authority that is most urgent. 
 The deputy prosecuting magistrate cannot bring an action in the 
 territorial tribunals against non-natives without having 
 previously obtained the consent of the State Attorney, 
 whilst the latter cannot give the required authorisation 
 without the sanction of the Governor-General. This may 
 be justified by the practice of some countries in Eastern 
 Europe, and by the youth and inexperience of the 
 
76 
 
 2 77 deputies; but the intervention of the administrative authority 
 should never arrest the course of justice. 
 
 Other reasons weigh in favour of the independence of the 
 prosecuting- magistrate. The laws of the State are applied 
 in the Haut-Congo in a most incomplete fashion. It is there- 
 fore absolutely necessary that an independent authority should 
 watch over their execution. In other words, the deputies ought 
 to be able freely to execute their functions as guardians of the 
 law, even in presence of the administrative authority. 
 
 Deputies should not, certainly, enter lightly on prosecutions, 
 and the authority of the State Attorney is a necessary 
 guarantee which should not disappear from Congolese legisla- 
 tion; but the chief magistrate, who is always experienced, ought 
 to be able to act on his own initiative, and there is no reason 
 why his decision should be subordinated to the opinion of the 
 Governor-General. 
 
 ^7^ In thus enfranchising the State Attorney, suspicions 
 which are raised by the abandonment of prosecutions by order 
 of a superior would be avoided. The Commission has verified 
 the fact that very often proceedings, commenced by deputies 
 against white men for maltreating natives, have been dropped on 
 account of the decision of the administration. No grounds 
 having been stated, it is difficult to say to what extent these de- 
 cisions were justified; in any case, in the future, the responsi- 
 bility should rest with the judicial authority. The only excep- 
 tion to this rule should be the power of intervention by the 
 Governor-General in political offences. 
 
 The Commissioners found in the prisons a number, often 
 considerable, of persons who appear on the register under the 
 denomination of political prisoners and who have been incar- 
 cerated on the simple order of the administrative authority. As 
 a rule, there is nothing at all political in the cause of detention, 
 but these are, for the most part, natives who have neglected to 
 
 279 furnish their imposts, or who have given asylum to contributors 
 in default, or to fugitives. They are submitted to the same 
 treatment as ordinary criminals, and their detention is often 
 prolonged for several months. It is a strange thing that, whilst 
 the law affords important guarantees for individual liberty and 
 protection against possible abuses of judicial power, it should 
 leave without curb and without control the action of the ad- 
 ministrative authority. It is easy to understand that in a savage 
 country one must allow considerable latitude, but where this 
 may be exercised to the prejudice of individual freedom, it ought 
 to be clearly regulated and limited. 
 
 The whole of the administration of the Independent State has 
 now been passed through the sieve of criticism, and all the 
 
 280 abuses have been dealt with. But only those can accu- 
 rately appreciate African affairs who have lived in the midst of 
 them. Seen from the European point of view, a great number 
 
77 
 
 of the facts wear a character, which they had not in liie eyes of 
 those who have witnessed them. Thus distinguished magis- 
 trates, who have been most helpful to the Commission in its 
 search for the truth, have affirmed that, in their opinion, the 
 retention of women as hostages is the gentlest,^ most humane 
 and most efficacious means of coercion, and that most in har- 
 mony with native custom, notwithstanding the fact that, judged 
 at a distance, this measure has the character of a crying 
 iniquity. It is evident that the legislation itself, which is 
 admirable in its character, does not always take sufficient 
 account of the condition of the country or of the natives. It 
 must be remembered that the Congolese are still savages. It 281 
 is no wonder that a legislation so " European " as that of the 
 Congo should meet, in its application, with insurmountable 
 obstacles. The Court of Appeal at Boma has, in these last few 
 years, pronounced judgments of remarkable severity, but it has 
 always taken account of the difficulties which all Europeans 
 have to face. To live, and to develop the resources of the 
 State, it is necessary to compel refractory natives to work; the 
 agents, enervated by a deadly climate, are isolated in the midst 
 of savage populations; their daily life presents only demoralising 
 spectacles; they have quitted Europe impressed with the value 
 of human life, but they soon find that, in this barbarous society, 
 life has no value; they have been taught from infancy to love 
 their neighbour, but they find in their new surroundings absolute 
 ignorance of that which is called charity, for the negro is moved 
 only by personal interest or by constraint; they are witnesses 
 in the villages of the miserable condition of the feeble and the 
 infirm, on whom the strong never fail to cast the burden of 28^ 
 labour; they see the women everywhere degraded to the con- 
 dition of beasts of burden. Those who have seen this spectacle 
 understand, without justifying, the violences, even the acts of 
 brutality, of the white traders towards the native who leaves 
 his post without food, and the recalcitrant contributor whom he 
 accuses of idleness and Illwill, without appreciating the diffi- 
 culties of the collection of india-rubber and the aversion of the 
 natives for this new kind of work. 
 
 The Independent State would have been able, had It so 
 wished, to avoid nearly all of these abuses which issue from the 
 difficulty of obtaining negro labour. It would have sufficed, 
 in imitation of other colonising governments, to authorise the 
 free entry of alcohol into their territory. Alcohol would soon 
 have become for the black an imperious necessity, to attain 
 which he would, with the utmost energy, have incited to work 
 all those over whom he had authority. God forbid that we 
 should suggest a measure which would in a few years brutalise 
 the whole race. The interdiction of alcohol is, with the sup- jg'j 
 pression of slavery, the truest title of the Independent State to 
 
 *See footnote to Section 195. 
 
78 
 
 g-lory. Humarity will ever appreciate its renunciation of this 
 powerful lever to which others have had recourse, by which 
 it has warded off from Africa a scourge more terrible than the 
 slave trade itself. 
 
 Measures have been suggested, the application of which 
 would put an end to the greater part of the abuses indicated, 
 and silence the criticism which has arisen lately. The Indepen- 
 dent State, by the wonders which it has accomplished in twenty 
 years, has given occasion to the world to show itself exigent. 
 At the same time, it owes to itself the introduction as soon as 
 possible of the reforms which we have recommended. The most 
 urgent among them can be carried out without expense, notably 
 the large and liberal interpretation of the land laws, the effec- 
 tive application of the law limiting to forty hours per month the 
 tax in labour, the suppression of the system of sentinels, the 
 withdrawal of the permit to capitas to carry arms, the with- 
 drawal of the right of compulsion from commercial companies, 
 the regulation of military expeditions, and the enfranchisement 
 of tribunals from administrative domination. Other important 
 and necessary reforms are, on the other hand, of such a nature 
 as to increase the financial burden of the State, whose budget 
 
 284 balances with difficulty. This consideration does not cause 
 the Commission to recede from the proposals which it has been 
 led to formulate in the interests of the natives, though it has 
 never neglected to present their practical side. 
 
 The Independent State was created with the consent of the 
 entire world, twenty years ago, by one single man, who has 
 borne all the expenses of the establishment of the State without 
 the intervention of any one. It draws its origin from the ac- 
 quiescence of the native chiefs and the personal efforts of its 
 creator. During several years the young State lived only on the 
 subventions of its founder; then Belgium afforded him a gene- 
 rous co-operation ; and now that the organization has consider- 
 ably developed, it is compelled to fall back on its own resources. 
 This situation differs essentially from that of other African 
 colonies. The State can therefore accomplish only by degrees 
 those reforms suggested by the Commission, which demand in- 
 creased expenditure; but it will fail in its obligations if, from the 
 present moment, it does not employ all the means at its disposal 
 
 285 to realise the desirable reforms formulated in the present report, 
 and which are all inspired by interest in the native populations. 
 
 Brussels, October 30, 1905. 
 
 The Report is signed by :— 
 
 The Presiderit of the Commission of Enquiry — 
 
 Edmond Janssens. 
 The Commissaires — Giacomo Nisco. 
 
 E. DE Schumacher. 
 The Secretary — V. Denyn. 
 
 The Secretary-Interpreter — Henry Gregoire. 
 
79 
 
 THE DECREE. 
 
 LEOPOLD II, KING OF THE BELGIANS, 
 
 Sovereign of the Independant State of the Congo. 
 
 To all to whom these presents may come, Greeting : 
 
 On the suggestion of Our Secretary of State, 
 
 We have decreed and do decree: 
 
 ARTICLE FIRST. 
 A Commission is appointed charged to study the conclusions 
 of the Report of the Commission of Enquiry, to formulate the 
 propositions which they demand, and to seek the practical means of 
 realizing them. 
 
 ARTICLE 2. 
 
 The Members of this Commission are named : — 
 
 President — M. van Maldeghem, A., President of the Chamber of 
 
 the Court of Cassation. 
 Members — 
 
 MM. Arnold, N., Director-General of the Department 
 of Finance ; 
 Chenot, L., Commissaire de district ; 
 Davignon, H., Past Senator, Member of the Chamber 
 
 of Representatives; 
 DE CuvELiER, Chcvalier, A., General Secretary of the 
 
 Department of Foreign Aifairs ; 
 DE Hemptinne, J., Manufacturer, President of the Counsel 
 
 of Administration of the Compagnie du Kasai ; 
 Droogmans, H., General Secretary of Finance ; 
 Five, G, Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Guides ; 
 GoHR, A., Director of Justice on the Congo ; 
 Janssens, E., Advocate-General in the Court of Cassation ; 
 LiEBRECHTS, Ch., General Secretary of the Department 
 
 of the Interior; 
 MoLS, A., Manufacturer; 
 Nys, E., Counsellor of the Court of Appeal, Member 
 
 of the Court of Arbitration of The Hague ; 
 ToMBEUR, C, Captain commanding the Corps d'Etat- 
 Major, Commissaire de district. 
 
 ARTICLE 3. 
 Our Secretary of State is charged with the execution of the 
 present decree. ^.^^^ ^^ Brussels, 31 October, 1905. 
 
 By the King-Sovereign : LEOPOLD. 
 
 In the name of the Secretary of State : 
 The Secretaires Generaux^ 
 Chevalier de Cuvelier. 
 H. Droogmans. 
 I^iebrechts. 
 
8o 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE A. 
 
 Character of the Negro. 
 
 The Report of the Commissioners has a good deal to say about 
 the character of the negro, mainly in regard (i) to his untruth- 
 fulness, (2) to his laziness, and (3) to his unwiUingness to better 
 his position. 
 
 1. Doubtless the negro is given to lying and exaggeration 
 where he beHeves that this will serve his immediate purpose 
 better than the truth. In this he does not stand altogether 
 by himself. By careful and patient enquiry, however, in his 
 own language, it is generally possible to arrive at the truth in 
 any matter under investigation, unless he has been subjected 
 to coercion by any of the parties concerned. Generally speak- 
 ing, the missionary may believe, without any hesitation, state- 
 ments of distress and oppression brought by the native to him 
 as his natural protector, and, if these should not be absolutely 
 true in every detail, they contain the elements of truth and are, 
 in the main, founded on fact. 
 
 One matter on which he exercised considerable evasion be- 
 fore the Commission was as to the number of his wives. Most 
 of the witnesses attempted to give the interpreter the impres- 
 sion that he had only one. This attempt was due to the desire 
 to lighten for himself the burden of taxation, which is calculated 
 according to the number of women in the household. 
 
 It is true that his notions of time are very vague, as he 
 has no means for its exact measurement, but he localises events 
 exactly, and if you let him make his calculations in his own 
 way, his numbers or prices will generally be correct. His method 
 of reiteration, in an enquiry, perplexes the stranger, just as the 
 white man's method of cross-examination perplexes him, and 
 appears to him to be absurd and uncalled for. 
 
 He is very susceptible to teaching, and quickly develops a 
 habit of truthfulness. Like his more civilised brothers, he 
 resents being called a liar, when he is suspected of falsehood 
 by those whom he finds to be themselves not altogether above 
 suspicion. Numberless proofs of the reliability and truthfulness 
 of the negro can be adduced, and these traits can be readily 
 developed when he is treated with uprightness and confidence. 
 
 2. It is true that the negro is naturally somewhat lazy, or 
 rather lethargic. He requires a good deal of looking after, 
 and resents any attempt to push him, or to fix, within narrow 
 
8* 
 
 limits, the time in which he must do his work. The Portuguese, 
 who themselves partake in some measure of the same charac- 
 teristics, understand the natives better than other Europeans, 
 and, on the whole, get on with them better. Whites from the 
 more northern latitudes are apt to put too much pressure upon 
 them. 
 
 On the other hand, the missionaries use no compulsion to get 
 the negro to work, and yet they have no difficulty with him. 
 Any mission station will supply numerous instances of willing 
 workers. Even in |;heir natural condition the natives are often 
 industrious, and even keen, traders. They will go on fishing or 
 trading expeditions for a month at a time, though on their 
 return they like to lounge about for a while. Mr. Weeks called 
 the attention of the Commission to some young men who were 
 making chairs and tables within fifty yards of the steamer on 
 which the Court was being held, and explained their industry 
 by the fact that they were under the protection of the mis- 
 sionaries, and knew that they would enjoy the fruits of 
 their labour. ** Given a guarantee," he said, ** that the natives 
 would reap the fruits of their toil, and not be cheated out of 
 them, and they would work without compulsion." The assump- 
 tion which runs through the whole report, that the native will 
 not work without compulsion, and on which the Commissioners 
 rear the immense fabric of the absolute necessity of a labour 
 tax and of compulsion, is falsified by the experience of every 
 Evangelical mission station in the State. 
 
 But altogether apart from this, it is well known that, before 
 the establishment of the State, many of the tribes on the Upper 
 Congo, which have now almost disappeared, were active in their 
 habits and keen traders. It is not enough to suggest, as the 
 Commissioners do (Section 238), that the abolition of the slave 
 trade has changed all this. If the State, instead of crushing 
 the tribes under an intolerable burden, had endeavoured to divert 
 their energies into other channels, the position would have been 
 different to-day. Consul Casement, in his report (p. 28), bears 
 testimony to the industry of those emigrants from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Lake Leopold II who have already been frequently 
 referred to, and whose territory affords the most striking illus- 
 tration of the desolation wrought by the rubber traffic.^ It 
 seems morally certain that a large trade in rubber might have 
 been developed under happier conditions. 
 
 3. The Commission, in a footnote to Section 161 of their 
 report, express their admiration of the progress made by the 
 natives in the region of the Cataracts under the tuition of Dr. 
 Bentley, whose death during the publication of this pamphlet 
 is an irreparable loss to the natives of the Congo Free State. 
 They express their interest in the fact that the natives had 
 learned sundry handicrafts, and had built on their own initiative 
 
 ^ Section 196 and footnote. 
 
82 
 
 and at their own expense ** some brick houses and even a 
 church " (Section i6i). As a matter of fact, a score of villages 
 in the neighbourhood of Wathen have brick houses (one or 
 more), and in six of them a brick church has been erected. 
 
 But what is true of the natives in that district is also true, 
 in a measure, of those who have been brought under the in- 
 fluence of Christian missions in all parts of the State; men who 
 / ^.ave been associated for any appreciable time with the mission 
 
 become anxious to better their surroundings, and frequently 
 build a mud and wattle house with two or more apartments, 
 colour-washed and decorated, and in some cases fitted with 
 plank doors, and shutters to the apertures of the windows. A 
 colony of such houses is to be seen at Bolobo and Monsembe, 
 and here and there one in the neighbourhood of Upoto. These 
 houses contain simple furniture of native manufacture. More- 
 over, the Christian negro clothes himself and tries to improve 
 himself by going to school. In the neighbourhood of Yakusu, 
 which is the most recently founded station of the B.TVI.S., the 
 young people in some seventy towns have recently erected, or 
 are now erecting, at their own cost and by their own labour, 
 buildings for school purposes superior to anything ever 
 attempted by these people before. On the other hand, the 
 universal testimony of those who know the country is, that, in 
 those districts v^here the pressure of taxation is the most severe, 
 the native hut is gradually degenerating, the people being too 
 hopeless and listless to build as carefully as was their wont in 
 times past. 
 
83 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE B^ 
 
 Taxation. 
 
 What follows is an attempt to estimate the incidence of taxation 
 without dealing in any way with the principle of the labour tax. 
 The report of the Commissioners conveys at every turn the idea 
 of the extreme burden of taxation by which the native is weighed 
 down, and one naturally seeks to form some estimate of this 
 burden in actual figures. The law of November i8th, 1903, 
 enacts that * ' every adult able-bodied native is subjected to a tax 
 which consists in work to be done for the State. This work 
 must be remunerated ; it may not exceed a total of forty effective 
 hours per month. The remuneration must be not less than the 
 actual local rate of wages." 
 
 Now forty hours per month of congenial work adequately 
 remunerated is by no means a heavy tax; but for the fact that 
 it limits the freedom of the native it can hardly be reckoned a 
 tax at all; but 
 
 (a) The work is often most uncongenial, and has to be 
 
 carried on under circumstances of the greatest pos- 
 sible discomfort and even hardship. 
 
 (b) The forty hours per month is almost always exceeded, 
 
 sometimes enormously, and 
 
 (c) The labour is hardly ever adequately remunerated. 
 The two latter points are capable of arithmetical illustration, 
 
 and some figures which have been supplied by the missionaries 
 illustrate the position and admit of a more definite conception 
 of the facts than is conveyed in the somewhat vague sentences 
 of the Report. 
 
 In the Upoto district, the supply of dried fish is a continually 
 increasing burden on the diminishing riverine population. The 
 village of Bopoto, for example, has to supply a weekly contribu- 
 tion of 500 sticks of dried fish, a tax altogether out of propor- 
 tion to the population,' and entailing almost constant anxiety 
 and work. For these 500 sticks the remuneration is 500 brass 
 rods, or one rod per stick. But not infrequently the natives 
 have to make up their quota by purchase from other and more 
 fortunate villages, and have to pay fifteen to twenty rods per 
 
 ^ This and the neighbouring villages are, moreover, requisitioned 
 in the more occasional taxes of material and labour, without any 
 remission of the standing* impost. 
 
84 
 
 Stick. It must be assumed that in this latter figure we have the 
 market value, and that before the native brings his mind to pay 
 a price so much higher than that which he receives, he has spent 
 more than the legal limit of time in seeking to supply his own 
 requirements. 
 
 But Lukolela supplies an example which illustrates what is 
 going on in many districts, and which admits of accurate 
 reckoning : 
 
 The law of November i8th, 1903, as far, at any rate, as it is 
 reported by the Commissioners, says nothing about sex. And 
 while in other countries the tax generally falls upon the adult 
 male, here the term ** able-bodied adult " seems to refer to the 
 woman as well. At Lukolela, she was called upon to supply a 
 tertain quantity of kwanga per week, for which she was paid 
 five rods. Sometimes she was glad to buy back the bread^ for 
 household use from natives in the employ of the State who had 
 more than sufficient, in which case she had to pay twenty-five 
 rods for the same quantity. Here obviously the tax amounts to 
 twenty rods per week. ^ 
 
 But at this station the natives were not taxed in rubber, and 
 frequently no regular burden was imposed upon the man other 
 than the delivery at the post of his wife's manufacture. To 
 compensate for his lack of service, however, a double burden 
 was, under these circumstances, imposed upon her, and she was 
 compelled to furnish ten rods' worth of kwanga. The unre- 
 munerated portion of her impost was then of the value of forty 
 rods per week. As twenty rods is the equivalent of one franc, 
 the contribution of a household at Lukolela, where the man was 
 exempt from tax and had only one wife, was thus fr.2 per week 
 or fr. 104 per annum. 
 
 This calculation gives some Idea of the immense burden of 
 taxation which falls upon the native, and may be compared with 
 the rate current in the French colony of Madagascar, which is 
 not by any means lightly taxed, where a sum of fr.20 per annum 
 is imposed on all natives beyond a radius of ten miles from the 
 capital. But as the Malagache is capable of earning twice as 
 much as the Congo native, the ratio must be multiplied by two, 
 and the tax represents a burden ten times as heavy. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that this is an exceptional case. 
 On the contrary, the figures indicate the normal impost, and 
 very frequently they are greatly exceeded. Consul Casement 
 
 ' The fact is here incidentally brought out that the demand on 
 these overtaxed people is often culpably extravagant. The soldiers 
 and workmen of the State are frequently in a position to sell to the 
 crews of passing steamers, or to resell to the natives who have supplied 
 them, provisions for which they have no use. 
 
 * It may be contended, though not justly, that five rods is the 
 remuneration for the labour expended at the " actual local rate of 
 wages," but the fact remains that the tax is twenty rods per week of 
 marketable goods. 
 
85 :■...,•.,- 
 
 tells us (p. 25) of a village where there were ten inhabitants, 
 only three of whom were women able to prepare and cook the 
 food, which had to supply 40 kwanga of 4^ to 6 lbs. weight per 
 week. But the Commissioners themselves supply the data. In 
 sections 175-6 we learn that the women of the inner zone round 
 Leopoldville supply ten chikwangues of 3^ lbs. each every four 
 days.^ Doubtless they get one rod per ration, and their free 
 contribution to the State cannot be less than fr.200 per annum. 
 
 But sometimes the fields of a village give out, and are unable 
 to supply ripe manioc sufficient to comply with the State demand. 
 Then the villagers have to buy from their more fortunate neigh- 
 bours, and sometimes have to go far afield for the root. To buy 
 this in the open market and to sell the product to the State is 
 indeed a ruinous business. The Rev. John Whitehead cites a 
 case where the villagers of Bongende, after crossing into the 
 French Congo and buying eighty rods' worth of manioc, found, 
 when it was made up, that they had only thirty-three rods' 
 worth of kwanga. He estimates the net loss on this one 
 transaction at sixty-five rods. 
 
 It should always be borne in mind that failure to supply 
 the full demand means imprisonment, the chain, or the chicotte. 
 
 But '* beside the rubber tax, the food and labour taxes seem 
 to sink into insignificance, whatever the hardships involved or 
 the burdens imposed." I quote the words of a Protestant mis- 
 sionary, and will endeavour to illustrate them by one out of 
 many cases quoted by Consul Casement (pp. 48, 49). The 
 transaction was completed under his own eyes at Bongandanga, 
 in the concession of the Ahir. 
 
 Many men were present, and each had brought a basket of 
 rubber, more or less full, and varying in purity. They were paid 
 with a wooden-handled knife of Sheffield cutlery, good and 
 strong. Some of the knives had a nine-inch blade, cost in 
 Europe 2fd. each, and after transport had probably cost 6d. 
 These were the remuneration for a full basket of pure rubber. 
 Others were smaller, and had a five-inch blade. Among the 
 natives themselves these knives pass at twenty-five and fifteen 
 rods respectively ; the Consul bought two, giving twenty-five 
 teaspoonfuls of salt for the larger and six teaspoonfuls of salt 
 and an empty bottle for the smaller. From a third member of 
 the party, whose basket had not been so well filled, he bought 
 his fortnight's salary of thirty-nine blue and white glass beads 
 for five rods. 
 
 The Consul goes on to describe his visit to the homes of these 
 people, and the grave difficulties and discomforts under which 
 
 ^ The crux lies in the weight of the State loaf, which is from four 
 to six times that of the loaf sold in the open market. The actual size 
 varies in different places ; at Bolobo the Government loaf ^ is 3 lbs. 
 2 ozs., and the market loaf 13 ozs. (Casement); in another district the 
 weights are respectively 6 lbs. and i lb. ; but the proportion ranges 
 as indicated, while the price is always one rod. 
 
the work is carried on. He then proceeds to estimate the value 
 of the product of their work and its remuneration. His com- 
 putation may be tabulated as follows : — 
 
 Per Fortnight. Per Annum. 
 
 Weight of rubber . . 7 kilogs. (15I lbs.) . . 403 lbs. 
 
 Value of rubber . . 49 fr. (^2 nearly) . . ^^52 os. od. 
 Remuneration (cost) . . is. .. .. .. ;£i 6s. od. 
 
 Do. (local value) 45 rods (is. lod.) . . j^2 7s. 8d. 
 
 It may readily be calculated from the above that the average 
 earnings of the three men was ^d. per day : the amount of the 
 product varied, but it must be observed that even the most 
 unsatisfactory basket of rubber passed muster, else the payment 
 would have been the prison or the chicotte. The earnings of the 
 man whose tale of rubber was quite satisfactory ran to 4-5ths of 
 a penny per day. The daily rate of wages is calculated over the 
 whole year, of which probably one-half to three-fourths was 
 actually spent in travelling and in the forest. 
 
 This entirely agrees with other testimony. Mrs. Ruskin, for 
 example, writes : " The local rate of wage at Bongandanga for 
 unskilled labour is nominally about sixteen rods (8d.) per week 
 for rations, and sixty rods (2s. 6d.) per month wages. I have 
 often seen small packets of salt, which had been given to rubber 
 collectors, containing from three to five teaspoonfuls of salt 
 (=i|d.-2^d.) for the fortnight's work. At other times they 
 were given beads, which they valued so little that they threw 
 them away as soon as they left the factory " (Official Organ of 
 the C.R.A. for December, 1905, p. 13). 
 
 Printed by Hazelly Watson <3y» Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
J"-^. o.,_^.,^^s4)4loo 
 
 RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 (510)642-6753 
 
 • 1 -year loans may be recharged by bringing 
 books to NRLF 
 
 • Renewals and recharges may be made 
 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 SENT ON ILL 
 
 SEP 1 5 2005 
 
 U.G. BERKELEY 
 
 DD20 6M 9-03 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
f- 
 
 ■f a;ji' ■;:;.•