168 



CONGO FREE STATE. 



international guarantee, and free to the trade of 

 all nations, together with the rest of the basin of 

 the Congo. The International Conference which 

 met at Brussels in 1890 authorized the Govern- 

 ment to impose certain duties on imports in or- 

 der to enable it to co-operate in the suppression 

 of the slave trade. The King of the Belgians, 

 who assumed the sovereignty personally and in- 

 dependently of the Belgian Government, by his 

 will, dated Aug. 2, 1889, bequeathed all his rights 

 to Belgium. The territories of the Free State 

 were declared to be inalienable on July 31, 1890, 

 after a convention had been concluded on July 3 

 between Belgium and the Free State, reserving 

 to Belgium the right to annex the Free State at 

 the end of ten years. 



The seat of the Central Government is in Brus- 

 sels. The sovereign is assisted by three heads of 

 departments, who have charge respectively of 

 Foreign Affairs and Justice, Finance, and the 

 Interior. 



The seat of the local government is at Boma, 

 on the lower Congo. Under the Governor-Gen- 

 eral are a Vice Governor-General, a General Sec- 

 retary, a State Inspector, a Director of Finance, a 

 Director of Justice, and the Commander of the 

 Forces. The armed forces consist of 4 compa- 

 nies, numbering 3,792 native African troops, 

 trained in 4 camps of instruction, and command- 

 ed by 11 captains and 33 lieutenants, all of whom 

 are Europeans. 



The precise boundaries of the Congo State are 

 defined in conventions, which were signed with 

 Germany on Nov. 8, 1884, with England on Dec. 

 16, 1884, with the Netherlands on Dec. 27, 1884, 

 with France on Feb. 5, 1885, and with Portugal 

 on Feb. 14, 1885. The area is estimated at 900,- 

 000 square miles, and the population at 17,000,000. 



Finances. The expenses of the Government 

 are defrayed from a subsidy of 2,000,000 francs a 

 year contributed by King Leopold, an advance 

 of 2,000,000 francs voted on July 3, 1890, for ten 

 years by the Belgian Parliament, from taxation 

 and imposts, and from sales and leases of public 

 land. 



Commerce and Production. The exports 

 are palm oil, rubber, ivory, gum copal, orchilla 

 weed, groundnuts, coffee, and camwood. The 

 principal imports are textile fabrics, firearms, 

 powder, spirits, and tobacco. The value of the 

 general exports in 1888 was 7.392,348 francs ; in 

 1889, 8,572,519 francs; in 1890, 14,109,781 francs. 

 The values exported of the principal articles in 

 1890 were as follow : Ivory, 5,070,851 francs ; 

 nuts, 2,464,619 francs; rubber, 3,080,358 francs; 

 palm oil, 1,563,766 francs; coffee, 1,685,604 

 francs ; gum copal, 96,484 francs. The exports 

 of the produce of the Free State in 1888 were 

 valued at 2,609,300 francs, and in 1890 at 4,297,- 

 544 francs. 



During 1890 there were 985 vessels, of 268,408 

 tons, entered at the Congo ports. There is regu- 

 lar steamship communication with Europe, and 

 there are 11 steamers on the upper and 7 on the 

 lower Congo. 



The Antislayery Convention. The gen- 

 eral act signed at the conference for the sup- 

 pression of the slave trade held in 1890 at Brus- 

 sels by representatives of the signatory pow- 

 ers, with the exception of Austria. France, 

 the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, and 



the United States, and afterward accepted and 

 ratified by all the powers, entered into operation 

 on April 1, 1892. To this act a declaration was 

 appended which empowered the Congo Free 

 State to levy duties on imports not to exceed 10 

 per cent, of the value of the goods. The authori- 

 zation of the powers was necessary because the 

 general act which created the Free State in 1885 

 declared its territory free to the trade of all na- 

 tions. Negotiations with Germany, Great Brit- 

 ain, and Italy resulted in an agreement made on 

 Dec. 22, 1890. regarding a tariff for their East 

 African possessions. Negotiations for the regu- 

 lation of import duties for the west coast were 

 carried on with France and Portugal, and on 

 April 8, 1892, a protocol was signed at Lisbon 

 by representatives of those powers and the inde- 

 pendent State of the Congo fixing a uniform 

 tariff on imports, and also regulating the export 

 duties levied in the French and Portuguese pos- 

 sessions in the Congo basin. The protocol wa,s 

 framed in the terms that the French Government 

 had submitted to the Chamber for approval in 

 the previous December. 



Representatives of the signatory powers of the 

 general act of the Antislavery Conference that 

 had not notified their adhesion before July 2, 

 1891, and to whom a further delay of six months 

 had been granted, met the ministers of the other 

 powers at the Foreign Office in Brussels, on Jan. 

 2, 1892, and exchanged ratifications. Austria- 

 Hungary, Russia, and Turkey had been kept 

 back by difficulties connected with the formali- 

 ties, and France by the refusal of the French 

 Chamber to approve the levying of import duties 

 by the Congo State. In December the Chamber 

 had changed its views, and thus removed this 

 obstacle to the execution of the decisions of the 

 Brussels conference after a delay of thirty 

 months. The Government of the Netherlands 

 was not yet in a position to signify its definitive 

 adhesion, but notified its acceptance of the act 

 subject to the confirmation of its action by the 

 States-General a few weeks later. When that 

 body met it ratified the convention. The Portu- 

 guese Government was unable to fulfill the for- 

 mality because its action, depended for various 

 reasons on the course that France would take, 

 and while the question was pending before the 

 French Parliament the Cortes refrained from 

 discussing the treaty. The Portuguese repre- 

 sentative at Brussels requested a further post- 

 ponement of thirty days, and when this period 

 was ended the Cortes had taken action, and he 

 was able to signify the adhesion of Portugal to 

 the convention, which unites all the civilized 

 powers in a sort of league for the extirpation 

 of the scourge of man-stealing and the slave 

 trade in Central Africa. The United States 

 minister obtained a similar delay, as the United 

 States Senate had not yet approved the treaty, 

 and on Feb. 2 he presented the ratification of the 

 convention, and of a special treaty of commerce 

 concluded between the Congo State and the 

 United States on July 2, 1890. The American 

 Senate had previously withheld its assent to the 

 Congo act lest it might involve the United States 

 in the position of having to take part in the de- 

 cision of questions connected with territorial 

 arrangements on the African continent. In 

 amending its attitude the United States Senate 



