970 



minister for the Colonies, and with the active encouragement of King Albert. By royal 

 decree of March 22, 1910, the right to collect, and to dispose of in trade, the natural 

 products of the soil was restored to the natives. This decree became operative in the 

 whole of Belgian Congo in July 1912, parts of the colony having been opened to trade in 

 July 1910 and July 1911 respectively. An endeavour was also made to restore the au- 

 thority of tribal chiefs, a tax in money was substituted for the tax in rubber, and the 

 demands of the reformers were met on nearly every point save that of land tenure. Up 

 to the end of 1912 the right of the natives to ownership of tribal lands had not been con- 

 ceded. The government, moreover, while granting absolute freedom of trade, itself 

 remained a trading concern and entered into keen competition with its rivals. In the 

 later half of 1912 the British and American consuls-general were sent on an extended tour 

 in the Upper Congo to report how the reforms decreed in Brussels were working in 

 practice. Until satisfied that the reforms were in actual operation the British and 

 American governments withheld their recognition of the annexation of the Congo State 

 by Belgium. By the end of 1912 all the other Powers had recognized the transfer. 



During 1910-12 the N.E. frontiers of the colony adjoining Uganda and German East 

 Africa were delimited, and the delimitation of the Congo-Rhodesian frontier was in 

 progress in 1912. By the Franco-German agreement of November 1911, which at one 

 point brought the German frontier down to the Congo River, the right of France to 

 pre-emption, should Belgium desire to part with the Congo, was so far modified that it 

 was agreed that in case of territorial changes in the Congo basin, France and Germany 

 would discuss the situation with the other signatories of the Berlin Act of 1885. 



The native population was estimated in 1912 at no mure than 8,000,000; the white popula- 

 tion was between 5,000 and 6,000, of whom nearly 2,000 were government officials and 570 

 missionaries (350 Roman Catholics, 220 Protestants). The only district in which there is 

 any European agricultural population is Katanga, where the climate resembles that of 

 Northern Rhodesia. 



The cost of administration, as was expected under the new regime, exceeds the revenue. 

 In 1910 the revenue was 1,340,000, the expenditure 1,612,000. In 1911 the revenue 

 was 1,620,000 and the expenditure 2,360,000. For 1912 the estimates were: revenue 

 1,815,000, expenditure, 2,661,000. The public debt (1912) was 10,475,000. The chief 

 products are rubber (still plentiful in the Aruwimi Forest, on the Angola border and in some 

 other regions), ivory, palm oil and palm nuts, copal, cocoa, gold and copper. The gold comes 

 mainly from the Kilo mines; the copper from Katanga. In March 1911 the British firm 

 of Lever Bros, was granted a concession of 20,000,000 acres in the lower Congo to establish; 

 a palm oil industry and soap manufactory. The same firm also obtained a concession in the 

 British gold coast colony.) Gum copal during 1911-12 became an important export; the 

 Congo copal is of excellent quality. On ivory, in which the State largely trades, there are 

 heavy duties. In 1910 the value of exports was 6,488,000, that of the imports (chiefly 

 textiles, food stuffs and machinery) 4,757,000. The bulk of the trade is with Antwerp. 

 The tonnage of shipping clearing Boma in 1910 was 617,000, 33 per cent being Belgian and 

 25 per cent British. France and Germany came next. 



On May 25, 1912, M. Fuchs, vice-governor at Boma, was appointed governor general 

 of the colony in succession to Lieut. -General Baron Wahis. The Comite special du 

 Katanga had been abolished in March 1910 and the administration of the province 

 assumed by the State. It was placed under a vice-governor, M. Wangermee, with 

 headquarters at Elizabethville, a town founded in 1910 (to serve the copper and tin 

 mines of the district) in a clearing in virgin forest, at the then terminus of the railway 

 from Rhodesia. In July 1911 the extension N.W. of this railway to Kambove (no m.) 

 was begun. Its completion was expected in March 1913. From Kambove, another 

 section of about 200 miles will bring the railway to the navigable waters of the Lualuba 

 (upper Congo), thus completing a rail and river steamer service between Cape Town and 

 Beira and the mouth of the Congo. 



The founding of Elisabethville (named after the Queen of the Belgians) marked a boom 

 in the development of Katanga. Its white population on January i, 1912, was 1,132 of 

 whom 519 were Belgians and 228 British. It covered an area of 560 acres and possessed 20 

 miles of streets. Within a radius of over 100 m of the town there were no native inhabitants 

 and the government in 1911 formulated a scheme for the emigration of Belgian agriculturists 

 thither. The white population of Katanga was in March 1912 between 1800 and 2,000 as. 



