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Major H. H. Gibbons, who was for several months on the Upper Nile, writes:—
“Having had occasion to know many officers, and to visit their stations in the Congo State, I am convinced that their behaviour has been much misunderstood by the press. I have quoted as a proof my experience, which is at variance with an article recently published in the English press, in which they are accused of great cruelties.”
The declaration of last June, of which a copy is inclosed, has disposed of the criticisms directed against the public forces of the State, by pointing out that recruitment for them is regulated by law, and that it is only one man in every 10,000 who is affected. To say that “the method of obtaining men for military service is often but little different from that formerly employed to obtain slaves” is to misunderstand the carefully drawn regulations which have, on the contrary, been issued to check abuses. Levies take place in each district; the district Commissioners settle the mode of conscription in agreement with the native Chiefs. Voluntary enlistment, and numerous re-enlistments, easily fill up the ranks, which only reach, all told, the moderate total of 15,000 men.
Those who allege, as the note says, that “the men composing the armed force of the State were in many cases recruited from the most warlike and savage tribes” must be unaware that the public forces are recruited from every province, and from the whole population. It is inconceivable that the authorities of a State, with due regard to its interests, should form an army out of undisciplined and savage elements, and instances are to be found—such as the excesses said to have been perpetrated by irregular levies in Uganda, and the revolts which formerly occurred in the Congo—which, on the contrary, render it necessary that special care should be exercised in raising armed forces. The European establishment, consisting of Belgian, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish officers, maintains strict discipline, and it would be vain to seek the actual facts alluded to in the assertion that the soldiers “not infrequently terrorized over their own officers.” Such an assertion is as unfounded as the one “that compulsion is often exercised by irresponsible native soldiers, uncontrolled by an European officer.” For a long time past the authorities have been alive to the danger arising from the existence of stations of negro soldiers, who inevitably abuse their authority, as recognized in the Report of Sir D. Chalmers on the insurrection in Sierra Leone. In the Congo such stations have been gradually abolished.
Those who do not refuse to accept patent facts will recognize that of the reproaches levied at the State, the most unjust is the statement “that no attempt at any administration of the natives is made, and that the officers of the Government do not apparently concern themselves with such work.”
It is astonishing to come across such an assertion in a despatch from a Government, one of whose members, Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, stated on the 20th May last:—
“There was no doubt that the administration of the Congo Government had been marked by a very high degree of a certain kind of administrative development. There were railways, there were steamers upon the river, hospitals had been established, and all the machinery of elaborate judicial and police systems had been set up.”
Another member of the House of Commons acknowledged—
“That the Congo State had done good work in excluding alcoholic liquor from the greater part of their domain; that they had established a certain number of hospitals, had diminished small-pox by means of vaccination, and had suppressed the Arab Slave Trade.”
However limited these admissions, still they contradict the assertion now made that “the natives are left entirely to themselves, so far as any assistance in their government or in their affairs is concerned.”
Such does not seem to have been the conclusion at which Mr. Pickersgill, the English Consul, had arrived as long ago as 1898.
“Has the welfare of the African,” he asks, “been duly cared for in the Congo State?” He answers: “The State has restricted the liquor trade . . . . . it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the service which is being rendered by the Congo Government to its subjects in this matter. . . . . Intertribal wars have been suppressed over a wide area, and, the imposition of European authority being steadily pursued, the boundaries of peace are constantly extending. . . . . The State must be congratulated upon the security it has created for all who live within the shelter of its flag and abide by its laws and regulations. . . . . Credit is also due to the Congo Government in respect of the diminution of cannibalism. . . . . The yoke of the notorious Arab slave-traders has been broken, and traffic in human beings amongst the natives themselves has been diminished to a considerable degree.”
This Report also showed that the labour of the native was remunerated, and gave
