THE CONGO FREE STATE 275 



selves, they could easily procure the amount in a 

 couple of days' work ; but such a system is quite 

 foreign to their ideas, and the result is that a few 

 servants of the chief, who are to all intents and 

 purposes slaves, do the whole work of the community, 

 while the rest stay at home at ease. The same 

 thing occurs, as I have pointed out in an earlier 

 chapter, in those villages whose tax is paid by the 

 labour of paddlers on the rivers — a few unfortunates 

 are unceasingly at work, whilst the rest do nothing. 



Until a universal currency has been introduced, 

 and a tax in money has been substituted for the tax 

 in labour, there can be no end to the unfairness 

 of the taxation as it exists at present. It should 

 always be borne in mind— and it is a fact which 

 is not generally known, or, if it is known, it is 

 forgotten — that the householder in Uganda who 

 fails to pay his annual hut-tax of three rupees, or 

 the taxpayer whose poll-tax of two rupees is not 

 forthcoming, pays an equivalent in one month's 

 compulsory labour for the Government. 



With regard to the payment of natives as hired 

 labourers, I have remarked above (Chapter XV.) 

 that the porter in the Congo Free State, and to 

 a somewhat less extent the paddler, is paid at a 

 higher rate than the porter in Uganda. The only 

 injustice here is that the labourer in the Congo 

 is paid in the objectionable 'trade goods,' and this, 

 again, can only be remedied by the establishment of 

 a currency. 



18—2 



