The New British Empire of the Sudan 267 



use and occupancy nearly three hundred 

 miles front on the west bank of the Nile 

 and an approximately average equal dis- 

 tance from the river into the interior. 



In the meantime the use of the Nile 

 front is to Belgium almost indispensable ; 

 she is permanently strengthening the 

 upper part of the Wadelai, though no one 

 supposes she will be so foolish as to fight 

 for it, and makes the Nile route the way 

 for her officers going and returning and 

 for the transaction of their personal busi- 

 ness, notwithstanding that the mails still 

 go by the overland Atlantic route. The 

 difference is one month to Brussels by the 

 Nile, against three or four by the Congo, 

 and it's no wonder that every officer tak- 

 ing leave chooses the former. 



Enough has already been ascertained 

 to make it certain that the future of the 

 Congo must be as an agricultural state. 

 She may look with confident certainty to 

 rubber, sugar, and cotton as staples, but 

 of mineral wealth there is doubtful en- 

 couragement. Gold in paying quantities 

 is known to exist in the southern prov- 

 ince of Katanga. Iron ore is found in 

 many places of satisfactory quality and 

 well located for development, but both 

 the coal and the limestone for smelting 

 are so far lacking, and until iron becomes 

 much scarcer in other countries or trans- 

 portation will permit importation of fuel 

 and flux, it is not likely that the Congo 

 steel trust will amount to much. As an 

 agricultural country, however, its con- 

 sumption of iron will not be large and the 

 situation is not one of much economic im- 

 portance. The mineral survey has a good 

 deal of unexplored country yet to ex- 

 amine, for it should not be forgotten that 

 the Congo Free State covers nearly ten 

 million square miles, being twenty de- 

 grees of latitude from north to south, or 

 would be if its salient or re-entering 

 angles were straightened out, and years 

 must necessarily elapse before its full 

 condition and capabilities are known. 

 Many believe that in the gold of the 

 Katanga alone Belgium has in the Congo 

 a prize which may some day rival the 



great wealth of the South African Rand. 



Of course, brief visits, largely formal 

 and superficial, do not qualify for any 

 authoritative opinions on the Congo out- 

 rages of which so much has been said. 



Impressions, however, may be taken 

 for what they are worth, and certainly 

 not only what was seen, but what was 

 heard at Lado and Kiro was distinctly 

 and altogether favorable. Everybody, 

 particularly the black soldiers and their 

 women, looked contented, well fed and 

 clothed and happy, and a better-looking 

 lot of men and women could not be mus- 

 tered at any British or American military 

 outpost. If they were oppressed or badly 

 treated they certainly had a most effective 

 way of concealing all signs of it, and the 

 wholesale re-enlistment confirms the fa- 

 vorable conclusion. British sportsmen who 

 have traveled widely in the Congo tell 

 the same story of good order and content 

 at every post. 



There is, however, an evident deep- 

 seated, probably ineradicable, opposition 

 among many Englishmen to the perma- 

 nent establishment of the Belgians in the 

 Congo, and they look eagerly for any 

 change which will drive them out of the 

 Lado enclave and restore both sides of 

 the Nile, from the Mediterranean to the 

 Equator, to the British flag. Especially 

 is the feeling strong among the mission- 

 aries, who complain of undue favoritism 

 to the Catholics in the Congo, and who, 

 when they let themselves go, predict that 

 this change will come of necessity and at 

 no distant day. "The Belgians," they 

 say, "are no colonists, as we are, intent 

 on the national development and per- 

 manent growth of the country. Their 

 whole Congo enterprise, stripped of high- 

 sounding names, is simply a great trading 

 proposition, rubber the loot and the na- 

 tives meat, and when they have got all 

 out of the country they can they will 

 simply scuttle, and we shall have to take 

 it over or it will revert to savagery." But 

 this is probably an extreme view or, still 

 more likely, the wish is father to the 

 thought. 



