3 have been retrenched.1 Nevertheless the welcome accorded to Messrs. Lever in the establishment of factories for palm products, which are already making much profit for the natives, whom they supply with regular work at good wages, is proof that great firms can make profits and prosper.2 At the end of 1911 M. Vandervelde brought forward many cases of abuse in the Congo, alleging that many of the children in the fermes chapelles of the Jesuit Fathers at Kwango were really stolen from their parents; that the Fathers used flogging and confinement in chains as modes of correcting those under their care; that they connived at illegal distilling; that many of the workmen brought to the posts as volunteers were really under coercion; that they were underpaid; that there had been interference in individual cases with the course of justice; that there was a tendency in the colony to subject judicial officers to administrative control; and that punitive expeditions had been needlessly many. The replies of the Minister for the Colonies showed that there was at least some substance in these complaints. At a later date, March 7, 1913, M. Vandervelde drew attention to an important report by Mr. ViceConsul Purdon, which showed that in the latter part of 1912 the Lomami Company was practically exacting through their chiefs forced labour in the production of rubber from the natives in their concession. The native', Mr. Purdon wrote, in the greater portion of the unfrequented districts. visited by me is purely and simply a machine for the enrichment of the State and trading companies. His opinion is not consulted when it is a question of work for the State, and his moral welfare is something too utterly remote to be considered.' M. Vandervelde also drew attention to a report by Mr. Consul Lament on his tour in the Uele and Aruwimi districts in 1912, in which he stated that the villages near the State posts were compelled to furnish them 1 Cd. 7048-66, p. 5. 7 2 Cd. 7620-103, p. 11. with provisions, and that the villages on the Kanwadoromo route had to make similar contributions to the mining camps of the Union forestière et minière at Kanwa. The Minister in reply in effect admitted the truth of the allegations by declaring that the Government were determined to take measures if necessary to cause the rights of the natives to be respected in the Lomami as they were in other parts of the Colony. To an interpellation by M. Vandervelde on the same occasion regarding murders committed by a certain Martin he was able to reply by showing that the man in question was suffering from sleeping sickness, while in other cases effective punishment of outrages has been secured.1 The evil of punitive expeditions merely for the sake of compelling chiefs to collect rubber was not unknown even in 1912, and the Government had not then succeeded in dealing effectively with some of the chiefs such as the notorious Zapo-Zap of Luluabourg, who has evaded the just punishment of his misdeeds towards his subjects by loyalty to the State, but episodes like this are essentially transient conditions and of no serious importance in measuring the progress of the State. 3 Less satisfactory is the evidence of friction against foreigners which is yet seen in the Katanga, induced in part no doubt by dread of foreign interference. There is much weight in the protest of Mr. Vice-Consul Campbell 5 in a letter to the Vice-Governor-General of that province of July 25, 1912: Were the laws administered generously and impartially as they should be in a new country, if prosperity is the aim, I think that traders of all nationalities would conform thereto, but they resent being regarded as outcastes because they are foreigners, and that this is the case I have been told over and over again both here and in the interior. It was a Belgian trader who informed me that a favourite theme of the officials in the interior was "Katanga for the Belgians, and let the English and Germans go to their own 2 Cd. 6606, p. 54. 1 Cd. 6606, p. 59. 3 Cf. Johnston, George Grenfell, i. 440, 441. Cd. 6606, pp. 59-72. 5 Cd. 6606, p. 72. colonies"; while a German, whose agents have travelled widely in the district, remarked, in complaining of the feeling of insecurity which he and his employees shared, that the Katanga is full of young and inexperienced officials, who have no idea of free trade for all nationalities alike, and who consider it to be their duty to assist their compatriots to the detriment of foreigners.' Too much stress must not be laid on these considerations, and it was undoubtedly a just balancing of what had been accomplished and what remained to be done that induced the British Government on June 27, 1913,1 to express to Belgium the formal recognition of the transfer of the Congo which it had so long withheld. The motives of the British people in their defence of the natives of the Congo were shamefully misinterpreted in Belgium for many years, where commercial or religious interests were believed to be the real motive for philanthropy. The most effective answer to the accusation is the record of the actual reforms accomplished, which have in every case followed the model suggested by the United Kingdom, while it is the adoption of these reforms alone which has rendered it possible to maintain that it is just that the people of the Congo should have their destinies entrusted to Belgium, and for this result Belgium is deeply indebted to the persistent efforts of British diplomacy and in special to the far-seeing policy of Sir Edward Grey. 1 State Papers, cvii. 352, 353. CHAPTER XII THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE KATANGA AND THE GERMAN MENACE 1. The Development of the Katanga. THE last years of the administration of the State had seen the prelude to the decisive development of the Katanga which was to be the most remarkable feature of the history of the Congo as a Belgian Congo. The vast mineral wealth of the Katanga was clearly of no importance until there was established effective railway communication, and financiers proved singularly unwilling to provide the funds necessary to secure the junction at Sakania of the Congo with the Rhodesian railway system. Finally, however, the energy of Mr. Williams prevailed, and on December 11, 1909, the arrival of the first engine at Sakania was duly fêted. A year later, on September 29, 1910, the line was complete to Elizabethville, and the way was prepared for the further railway construction which has provided effective communication between the Katanga and the mouth of the Congo. The development of the Katanga rendered it desirable to secure for it government more effective than could ever be provided by a Governor-General at a vast distance, and it was therefore decided that the territory should be constituted into a Vice-Government-General practically independent in all matters of the Governor-General. To effect this it was necessary to determine the political powers of the Comité spécial, which, under the agreement of 1900 with the State, still held the full executive authority in the Katanga. The Charter1 contemplated the extinction of this régime not later than January 1, 1912, and the decree of March 22, 1910, accelerated the date. But the decree could, of course, deal 1 Art. 22. only with the administrative powers of the Government, which it had conferred of its own will on the Comité, and that body therefore remains entitled to act as the guardian of the rights in common possessed over the lands of the Katanga by the State and the Katanga Company. On the other hand, the operations of the Comité are no longer subject to its own pleasures: it is bound by the Belgian legislation which regulates the terms of concessions of all kinds whether of land or of minerals, a derogation from its former rights which it might theoretically have resented.2 In fact, however, the majority of members appointed by the State gives the Government the full control of the Comité, which has thus the aspect of a governmental department, and an agreement of September 11 and 15, 1911, has appointed as its representative in Africa the Vice-GovernorGeneral of the Katanga. The prosperity of the mines of the Katanga and its proximity to Rhodesia have, however, raised questions of no small complexity. The population, which was but 361 in 1910, rose to 747 in 1911, to 1,760 in 1912, and to perhaps 2,500 on January 1, 1914,3 of whom 1,000 were at Elizabethville. The Belgians number about half the population of the Katanga, but the economic dependence of the country on South Africa is obvious and undeniable. The native labour required for mining operations is largely imported from northern Rhodesia, and supplies of all kinds are drawn from Bulawayo, Salisbury, Johannesburg, or other South African sources. The natural railway outlet is to Beira, for the Congo route is very much longer, and by reason of the breaks in its continuity is expensive as demanding transhipments. It is not unnatural, therefore, especially when it is remembered that the possession of the Katanga was once in dispute with the Chartered Company, that uneasiness should be common in Belgium as to the future of the territory, and 1 Art. 15, modified by a law of March 5, 1912. 1 |