This rubber traffic is steeped in blood, and if the natives were to rise and sweep every white person en the Upper Congo into eternity, there would still be left a fearful balance to their credit.
Some of the wretched Europeans employed by the Concessionaire Companies wrote home boasting of their exploits. Their letters found their way into the papers. One such "agent" confessed to have "killed" 150 men, cut off 60 hands, crucified women and children," and hung the remains of mutilated men on the village fence. A simulachre of judicial repression followed these embarrassing disclosures, and the Congo courts condemned the culprits to long terms of imprisonment which, of course they never served. In each case the defence was the same. They had acted under instructions from their superiors to get rubber by any and every means. Needless to say their "superiors" were not proceeded against.
While these abominations were taking place in the Congo, some of us were engaged in unravelling the mysteries of the Congo "System" at the European end. Investigation revealed such depths of infamy that it was difficult sometimes to believe that one was living in the opening years of the 20th Century. Finally, after three years sustained public effort, the whole question was brought before the House of Commons (May 1, 1903). All political parties united in demanding that the British Government should invite the signatory Powers of the Berlin Act to another International Conference. This the Government did. The chief cause of its failure to secure such a conference is given in the next chapter.
From that date onwards evidence from the Congo accumulated in ever-increasing volume. The era of the publication of the British consular reports (the earlier ones had been suppressed) began with Sir Roger Casement's detailed narrative, bracketed in the same White Book with Lord Cromer's scathing comments confined, however, to the centres of Congo Free State influence on the Nile. Sir Roger Casement, whose inquiries had not extended beyond the vicinity of the banks of a part of the main river, did not return to the Congo. His work of exposure was carried on over a long term of years, and prosecuted into almost every part of the Congo by his successors, Consuls Thesiger, Beak, Mitchell, Armstrong, etc.; by the Consular staff appointed
