January i, 1906.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



113 



THE DEFENSE OF THE CONGO ADMINISTRATION. 



^ I "■ HE criticisms of the administration of the Congo Free 



I State which have been so persistent for the past two 

 or three years, particularly in England, have been no- 

 ticed from time to time in The India Rubuer World, 

 with the qualification always that the concern of the rubber in- 

 terest in the matter is wholly apart from world politics. In 

 other words, this being purely a technical and trade journal, 

 the interests which it represents most intimately must consider 

 the Congo question primarily with regard to the reckless ex- 

 haustion of the rubber resources of the Congo which has been 

 in progress for the past decade and is now nearing a climax. 

 This being the only reason for our referring to the matter at all, 

 the charges against the Congo administration which have been 

 the text for such voluminous issues from the English press, not 

 to mention German and other publications on thesubject. have 

 never been fully set forth in these pages. In view of what has 

 been published in this Journal heretofore, however, it seems 

 proper to refer here to a report recently published, of a commis- 

 sion of enquiry created on July 23, 1904, 

 by Leopold II, king sovereign of the 

 Congo Free State, to consider the 

 abuses under which the natives of the 

 Congo were alleged to be suffering and 

 to decide upon such reforms as might 

 be necessary to check such abuses. 

 The full report of the committee, dated 

 October 30, 1905, fills 1 50 pages of the 

 Bulletin Officiel de I' Etat Independant 

 du Congo, and is too lengthy even to be 

 summarized in these columns. The 

 details, however, which relate most 

 definitely to the rubber interest will 

 have brief attention. 



A considerable section of the report 

 relates to the products of the Domaine 

 de la Couronne (the domain of the 

 crown), which comprises by far the 

 larger portion of the Free State and is 

 administered as a national reserve. 

 The most important of these products 

 from a commercial standpoint thus far 

 has been Caoutchouc, and the reference 

 to this commodity in the report of the committee is here 

 translated : 



There is no doubt that the working of a rubber forest, continued for 

 a term of years, results in exhausting the supply in the neighborhood of 

 the native villages. 



This fact explains the reluctance of the negro to gathering the rubber 

 sap, an industry which is not in itself toilsome. Yoi the most part he is 

 obliged, every fortnight, to make a journey of one or two days, and 

 sometimes more, to reach a place where he can find a sufficient growth 

 of the rubber plant. There, for a number of days, he leads a miserable 

 existence. He is obliged to improvise a shelter which evidently cannot 

 be equal to his hut. He is deprived of his accustomed food, he is un- 

 accompanied by his wife, exposed to the inclemency of the weather and 

 to the attacks of wild beasts. His harvest he must carry to a station of 

 the government or of the company, and not until then can he return to 

 the village, where he can stay only two or three days, as another matur- 

 ing payment pursues him. 



The result is that whatever may be his industry in the rubber forest, 

 the greater part of his days, by reason of these journeyings, is spent in 



LEOPOLD ir 



King of the Belgians ; King Sovereign of the Congo 

 Free State. 



gathering rubber sap. It is hardly necessary to say that this state of af- 

 fairs is a flagrant violation of the law which requires of the native 40 

 hours of labor per month. From our point of view, the only way to ad- 

 just this difference between the requirements of trade and the text and 

 spirit of the law would be to let more time elapse between the peiiods 

 when the native must make his returns. In this way the time lost in go- 

 ing to and from his labor would not be so great and the time required of 

 him woulJ come nearer to the 40 hours per mouth prescribed by law, es- 

 pecially if the quantity of rubber which he is required to furnish were 

 more equitably fixed and did not reach a maximum rarely attained, and 

 which we believe to be excessive. It might be objected that improvi- 

 dence is a characteristic trait of the native, and that he would put off un- 

 til the last moment his departure in quest of the quantity of rubber ex- 

 acted of him. We think, however, it would be possible to require of the 

 native a discharge of his debt to the state every three months, and then 

 at the proper time the whites could remind the shiftless negio of his duty. 

 His stay in the forest being thus more prolonged, but less frequent, the 

 native would doubtless find it expedient to construct a more suitable 

 shelter, and to take his wife along with him, and she would prepare for 

 him his accustomed food. Moreover, in the 

 opinion of the commission the imposts being 

 necessarily collective, on account of the diffi- 

 culty of reaching individuals, the inconven- 

 ience resulting from the intervals between 

 the collections would be greatly diminished, 

 and moreover the personal convenience of 

 the natives could be taken more into account. 

 It is evident that if no tax were levied it 

 would be necessary, in calculating the hours 

 of work, to take into account the time spent 

 by the laborer in getting to and from his 

 work. 



What is even more pertinent to the 

 Caoutchouc interest, however, is the 

 section of the report headed " Les Con- 

 cessions," in which is discussed the re- 

 lation of the concessionaires to the state, 

 and this of course involves the conduct 

 of the Belgian tradingcompanies whose 

 operations in rubber on the Congo for 

 several years past have resulted in al- 

 most fabulous, though now declining, 

 profits. This section alone is much too 

 lengthy for space here in full, but in 

 the paragraphs which follow an attempt has been made to pres- 

 ent a summary which shall reflect, as accurately as possible 

 the spirit of the official report, which is, of course, in French : 



" As we have seen, it is in those parts of the country worked 

 by companies having a concession that the most serious abuses 

 have occurred. By concession we understand a right given to 

 commercial companies to gather, for their exclusive profit, cer- 

 tain products of the state domain. Some of the companies 

 own the lands which they work. In return for the concession, 

 the state receives a considerable part (generally one half) of the 

 profits. 



"We are far from contesting the power of the state to concede 

 rights in certain parts of its domain; at times circumstances 

 have made this step necessary. The state, having neither the 

 agents nor the resources necessary, was glad to avail itself of 

 private capital. The laziness of the natives and their few per- 

 sonal wants made it impossible to work the forests (after those 



