Press Opinions on the "Curse of Central Africa "—r^?;//^. 



arrangement of the material. It is also much to be regretted 

 that the photographs should have been so very badly repro- 

 duced that they are in several instances quite useless for the 

 purpose which they are avowedly intended to serve. But these 

 matters, though by no means unimportant in what is intended 

 as a formal indictment of the methods employed by the Congo 

 State Administration, are defects of form rather than of sub- 

 stance, and it is in the material parts of the indictment that 

 the real interest of the volume will be found. It has been 

 suggested that the statements made in the book may probably 

 form the subject of investigation before a court of law. We do 

 not know how far this suggestion is likely to be realised, but in 

 any case, we do not propose to anticipate the result of such an 

 inquiry, should it be held, by discussing in detail the evidence 

 which is adduced by the authors in this volume. Without 

 committing ourselves to the opinion that an English court of 

 law, with its very rigid rules of evidence, is the best tribunal 

 for conducting an inquiry which must necessarily, if it is to be 

 at all exhaustive, cover a very wide field, we may point out that 

 we have always strongly urged the imperative necessity that an 

 inquiry should be held into the appalling chaaiges made against 

 the Congo Administration. That view has been further 

 strengthened by an examination of the volume now under 

 review. Some of the charges here made, with a particularity 

 of names and dates which enables their accuracy to be put to 

 the test, are of so atrocious and appalling a character that the 

 mind instinctively revolts at the idea that a civilised country 

 can have produced monsters capable of the deeds alleged to 

 have been comm.itted. It is simply impossible that these 

 charges can remain without investigation. The Sovereign of 

 the Congo Free State cannot ignore them ; nor can the 

 Governments responsible for the creation of the Congo Free 

 State decline to recognise their responsibility in this matter. 

 Moreover, it is not sufficient to attempt to discredit the authors 

 because they both appear to have been willing to re-enter the 

 service of the State for a further term. In the introduction 

 Mr. Leigh quotes some correspondence which passed between 

 Captain Burrows and the Congo Administration, and between 

 Mr. Canisius and the Administration. We frankly confess 

 that we do not like the idea that, with the knowledge they had 

 of its methods, Captain Burrows and Mr. Canisius should have 

 been willing to re-engage themselves in the service of the Free • 

 State ; but, as we have said, that circumstance in no way 

 detracts from the necessity for a full, public, and impartial 

 inquiry into the charges now publicly made against the Congo 

 Administration, for if those charges are well-founded, they 



