Democratic Republic of the Congo

“ But we, who were elected by the votes of your representatives, representatives of the people, to guide our native land, we, who have suffered in body and soul from the colonial oppression, we tell you that henceforth all that is finished with. The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed and our beloved country's future is now in the hands of its own people. ”

“ They will have to teach the Congolese people that independence is not achieved through immediate pleasure gratification, but through work, through respect for the freedom of others and the rights of the minority, through tolerance and through order without which no democratic regime can survive. ”

“ There is a movement on foot to apply to British tropical Africa the self-same policy, based upon the self-same principles, which decimated and ruined the Congo. The motive behind it is identical. It is being astutely engineered, sophistically urged, presented in a new garb. It is a real danger, for it is supported by great wealth and also by democratic influences, either suborned, or, as one would prefer to believe, misled by ignorance. ”

“ It is contended by the advocates of the Congo Free State that the form of its government at any time before or after recognition can not in the slightest degree affect the question of the State’s actual existence. ”

“ A civil community was to be created of savage hordes; to maintain itself by its own people led on to civilisation by a few Europeans with a courage and zeal the equatorial sun should not subdue. The vast field it occupied and the untamed characteristics of its large population, the early philanthropic aims of its royal patron, and a general desire to carry out the principles enunciated at the Berlin Conference, all contributed to invest the Congo State Government with a special character, and to saddle it with original duties supposedly beyond its powers to perform. ”

“ The German Government will willingly lend its help in placing the Congo Free State in a position to acquire the means which may seem necessary to assist its development and to enable it to continue its valuable services to the cause of civilisation and humanity. ”

“ It is the earnest desire of the Belgian people, and those who are interested in the welfare and progress of the native population of Mid-Africa, that the good-will and respect of the people of the United States and their President may continue, by their sympathy, to enliven the devotion, energy, and sacrifice which the builders of the Congo Free State are expending upon races which but a few years ago were in a state of the wildest savagery. ”

“ Brothers, let us commence together a new struggle, a sublime struggle that will lead our country to peace, prosperity and greatness. Together we shall establish social justice and ensure for every man a fair remuneration for his labour. We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa. ”

“ The very element of, and respect for, ownership of lands, chattels, or other objects of material value, preserves that order which all law seeks to enforce, for which civil society is organised on foundations of equity and justice. Was it not the very principle which actuated the Berlin Conference when, in order to remove the Congo Free State from the covetous rivalry of the Powers—their disputes and possible wars—it recognised the occupants of the Congo Basin and neutralised the Congo State? ”

“ Thirty years ago what is now the Congo Free State was a wild tangle of luxuriant tropical growth through which hordes of black savages roamed, fought, and practised their unspeakable barbarities, living almost entirely upon the spontaneous products of Nature. The white magician has waved his wand and the scene is transformed. In, and far around, each of the numerous governmental stations or posts, life and property are as secure now as in any part of Europe or America. ”

“ But to attain our goal without delay, I ask all of you, legislators and citizens of the Congo, to give us all the help you can. I ask you all to sink your tribal quarrels: they weaken us and may cause us to be despised abroad. ”

“ The Congo Free State has indeed, without breaking any Treaty, solved the problem which has baffled the combined wisdom of all the ancient great colonial Powers. It exists on its own resources without poisoning the natives with alcohol; it extracts much wealth from the soil without fear of ever exhausting it; it opens up great tracts of land without running heavily into debt, and—noblest of all—it daily converts naked cannibal savages into self-respecting responsible people. ”

“ The difficulty of dealing with an area of more than 800,000 square miles with only a very few hundred white men who were in command of black troops, drawn from the very tribes whose habits I just now referred to, has been enormous. It has been one of the most anxious and difficult tasks that a civilised country ever undertook. That task has been fulfilled—on the whole with signal success. No set of men are absolutely free from reproach. The position of the representatives of the Congo Free State has been an extremely difficult one. ”

“ Where Europe, whose interests in Africa are material as well as moral, has not seen fit to join a British traders’ campaign against a small neutralised State, it would seem that the United States Government could not be led into action on the pretext that its recognition of a friendly Government invested it with police powers over the internal affairs of the State so recognised. “Territory” and “commerce” are the tightly furled, secretly carried banners of the raid upon the Congo State. This exaggerated humanitarian solicitude for the African black is purely pretence. ”

“ We are proud of modern civilisation. We congratulate ourselves upon the progress of international law among civilised nations. We are therefore justified, it seems to me, in asking of the states which participate in the European concert of public law, whether it would not be possible to assert this principle of duty towards the community of states as a means of solving the question of the Congo, without awaiting the stern necessity of intervening to put an end to war, or, at the least, the occasion of offering mediation to avert a recourse to the sad arbitrament of the sword. ”

“ The Congo's independence is a decisive step towards the liberation of the whole African continent.
Our government, a government of national and popular unity, will serve its country. I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence. ”

“ The Congolese law protects the natives in the enjoyment of the lands that they occupy, and in fact not only are they not disturbed in that enjoyment, but it even extends their cultivation and their plantations in proportion with their necessities. Manifold are the measures taken by the Congo State in order to safeguard the natives against all spoliation:
“‘No one has the right to dispossess the natives of the lands which they occupy.’ (Order of 1st July, 1885, Article 2.) ”

“ And were the country not so rich in rubber and ivory, were the natives not sweated so severely, he also would be a bankrupt shopkeeper. For the Congo is not only one vast trading post, but also it is a trading post badly managed. Even in the republics of Central America where the government changes so frequently, and where each new president is trying to make hay while he can, there is better administration, more is done for the people, the rights of other nations are better respected. ”

“ It has never placed itself under the guardianship of any Power or collection of Powers. It has no connection with Belgium except the fact that King Leopold happens to be king of each of them. The two Governments are entirely independent.
One of the great achievements of the Congo State has been the suppression of the Arab slave-traders, who were in the habit of invading Central Africa, carrying off slaves to the eastern markets, and laying waste the country through which they passed. It is estimated that 100,000 natives were killed each year in these slave raids. ”

“ That the Government of the Congo Free State, having, at its inception, guaranteed to the Powers that its native subjects should be governed with humanity, and that no trading monopoly or privilege should be permitted within its dominions ”

“ As the State gave increased proof of vitality and progress, the campaign became more active, reliance being placed on a few individual and isolated cases with a view to using the interests of humanity as a pretext and concealing the real object of a covetousness which, in its impatience, has betrayed itself in the writings of pamphleteers and in the speeches of members of the House of Commons, in which the abolition and partition of the Congo State has been clearly put forward. ”

“ Although this independence of the Congo is being proclaimed today by agreement with Belgium, an amicable country, with which we are on equal terms, no Congolese will ever forget that independence was won in struggle, a persevering and inspired struggle carried on from day to day, a struggle, in which we were undaunted by privation or suffering and stinted neither strength nor blood. ”

“ The principles of the Congo Government are that the soil shall maintain those who develop its resources for the betterment of the sower and the reaper. The civilisation of the native by industry and other forms of instruction in the attributes of order, civic life, and all that he may be capable of absorbing of enlightened freedom. For the privilege of residing within the sphere of a State so governed, the white man is the most taxed member of society in the world. Shall savages alone be exempt from labour and just contribution to organised government? ”

“ Reasonable control is only another name for State law and police regulation. The Congo Government maintains that, subject to its internal laws and regulations which affect its own and foreign subjects alike, the subjects of every nation are free to enter [Pg 119] its territory in pursuit of legitimate trade. Apropos of this phase of the subject Baron Descamps says:
The power of the State in this connection is incontestable. ”

“ There is, in all colonies, whether under British, German, American, French, or Belgian rule, ample opportunity for criticism. There is, on the other hand, even greater opportunity for help and co-operation. The demoralising story of British Lagos is alone sufficient to make British criticism of every other nation’s colonies pusillanimous. Acts of cruelty by natives, foreigners, or by State servants are in violation, not in consequence, of the Congo State’s system of government. For such infractions of the law the individual, not the State, is responsible. ”

“ Intertribal wars have been suppressed over a wide area, and the imposition of European authority being steadily pursued, the boundaries of peace are constantly extending.... The State must be congratulated upon the security it has created for all who live within the shelter of its flag and abide by its laws and regulations.... Credit is also due to the Congo Government in respect of the diminution of cannibalism.... The yoke of the notorious Arab slave-traders has been broken, and traffic in human beings amongst the natives themselves has been diminished to a considerable degree. ”

“ If the freedom of commerce defined by Congophobes were permitted to prevail in any civilised or uncivilised country in the world, anarchy and tribal wars would ensue, all rights of property [Pg 117] would be violated, and the larcenous proclivities of the African Negro would be encouraged. In the case of the Congo, a reign of terror would decimate the native population, and denude the forests which the wise laws of the State endeavour to preserve. Upon their ruins the “savagery” of the white man would have succeeded that of the black. ”

“ To me, the fact of greatest interest about the Congo is that it is owned, and the twenty millions of people who inhabit it are owned by one man. The land and its people are his private property. I am not trying to say that he governs the Congo. He does govern it, but that in itself would not be of interest. His claim is that he owns it. Though backed by all the mailed fists in the German Empire, and all the Dreadnoughts of the seas, no other modern monarch would make such a claim. ”

“ The Belgians have gone on the principle, to begin with, that the native must be a participating element in the development and civilisation of the country—that is, that he must work with and for the white man, and thereby benefit not only the white man but himself. I was immensely impressed with the state of government and the advancement and general opening-up of the Congo, the more so as I can compare it with other districts under British control in which I have been. We do not attempt to make the native work, with the result that we do not get the benefit we should from our Protectorates. ”

“ No sooner is one mendacious story refuted than ten others take its place. The Congo campaign multiplies its adherents, it gathers force daily, its voice becomes more and more thunderous, until at last it invades the British House of Commons and moves a British minister to write a puerile dispatch to the Great Powers, which the Great Powers, in the exercise of their common-sense, politely ignore. ”