THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



(DtCKMUtR 1, 1919. 



Congo Rubber a Big Asset of Belgium. 



By S. P. Vcnu-r. 



HER Congo Colony may liocome one of the most valuable 

 assets of Belgium in her efforts to rebuild her once 

 flourishing trade and industry. The chief point to be 

 observed by the Belgian Government in its colonial policy is 

 to conserve and develop the labor of the natives. Failure to 

 do this was the weak point in the old regime ten years ago, but 

 now King .Albert inay be expected to inaugurate a system which 

 will correct past mistakes and make Belgium's big .African ter- 

 ritory a source of wealth to both Belgium and the natives of 

 the Congo. 



The principal needs of the Congo are three : an adequate 

 sanitary service; the raising 

 of food supplies; and the de- 

 velopment of special industries 

 whose products are so valu- 

 able as to be profitable not- 

 withstanding the great dis- 

 tance of the Congo from the 

 markets of the world. 



Rubber, ivory, minerals and 

 oils are the four chief indus- 

 tries in the Congo which will 

 bear the expense of transpor- 

 tation and still yield good 

 profits. Of these, rubber is 

 one of the most immediately 

 valuable. The old system of 

 rubber collection by the na- 

 tives yielded large profits, but 

 it led to certain results which 

 damaged the industry. The 

 natives were willing enough to 

 gather rubber at first, and they 

 went into the business to the 

 extent that more than $10,COO,- 

 000 of rubber per annum was 

 produced in King Leopold's 

 day. 



But the African natives 

 could not eat rubber. Agents 

 of King Leopold's government 

 and of the commercial com- 

 panies in which he was largely 

 interested did not always ap- 

 preciate the fact that they 

 might easily kill the goose that 

 laid the golden egg, or rather 

 the African, whose labor pro- 

 duced the precious caoutchouc, 

 when they insisted that the 

 natives turn from agricultural 



pursuits to gathering wild rubber to such an extent that famine 

 resulted in many districts. 



When the rubber buyers began to bring pressure to bear on 

 the natives to go into the forests and get rubber, the white 

 traders did not bring food supplies into the country, but vaguely 

 supposed that the greatest abundance of food was available 

 locally. This was true in some districts where there was a suf- 

 ficient number of unemployed natives to enable the rubber busi- 

 ness to be carried on without interfering with food production. 

 But in other districts this was not the case, and an American 

 explorer chanced to see what happened to some Congo tribes- 

 men while they were engaged in catching and smoking fish, 



Tapping Landolphia Vines. 



upon which several villages were accustomed to subsist from 

 one season to another. 



One day, at the height of the fish curing season, a message 

 came from one of King Leopold's oflicials, ignorant of local 

 coixlitions, ordering the men engaged in this business to come 

 iiTimcdiately to his post in order to carry cargo for a rubber 

 buying expedition into the interior. This meant the abandon- 

 ment of the fish curing, since no compromise was entertained 

 by which some of the men might be left to carry on the work. 

 In fact, the order included a large number of women, who had 

 to go to carry food supplies and camp equipment for the use 

 of the men on the trip. 

 The result was that the 

 whole population of several ' 

 villages was limited to one 

 month's supply of food, where- 

 as, but for the interruption, a 

 year's supply would have been 

 secured in another month. 

 When the porters returned 

 after a three months' trip, they 

 brought back cloth, sea-shells 

 and beads with which they had 

 been paid for their work, but 

 there being no supply of food 

 in the country, these articles 

 were useless, e.xcept by mak- 

 ing a long journey to a distant 

 region where they might bar- 

 ter them for food. 



Such a practice caused many 

 of the revolts which led to 

 wars and suffering, caused the 

 decline of the population, 

 made very much less labor 

 available for the rubber in- 

 dustry, and caused many of 

 the white men to be cordially 

 hated. A more intelligent 

 policy, without necessitating 

 the expenditure of any more 

 capital would have avoided 

 this, and have increased the 

 output of the rubber. 



Rubber gathering in the 

 Congo was both fascinating 

 and exciting to the natives, 

 and not by any means un- 

 popular if properly managed, 

 as in the earlier days of the 

 African rubber industry. The 

 fascinating part of the business consisted in the incidental pleas- 

 ures of the chase and of camping out. Young men from a vil- 

 lage on the African plains would pack up their belongings, 

 march to the heavy forests along the river courses, and seek for 

 a place where the rubber vines grew in abundance. Sometimes 

 such a locality would be forty or fifty miles away from their 

 homes, and it would take two or three days to get there. Then 

 they would first put up rough palm-thatched huts, start their 

 camp fires, and hold a religious meeting in which the medicine 

 men would bless the undertaking, curse all their enemies, two- 

 footed and four-footed, and see that each man had his fetish 

 in working order. Tlie rubber gatherers would then scatter 



