CONGO HORRORS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3181, 29 March 1911, Page 7

CONGO HORRORS.

AA'ORSE'EffAN EVER

In many parts .of the Congo things arc as bad as, or -worse than ever( declares M. Vander.velde, _ the Belgian author)- .So that •to .the question, “Have the partisans;of .reform won the day, and can they .lay down their arms?” there is only oiie answer possible. and that is in .the negative. Also the reforms are not yet carried out. They .are- only vdecreed. Their application has hardly .begun.. For at least another two years the natives of the Uele district and .the central provinces must sumbit to forced labor, and to the corvee of goods and i übber. and even then, uaaless new and indispensable reforms .are enforced, the constraint will remain ;.eu;ceitain categories of work, and the. .inhabitant's continue to be robbed :of the. fruits 'of ; the soil, and the taxes- in money* with local labor, will continue ;tb ibo. alaphst as onerous. as the okl tax..of forty .hours’ work. ' The public debt of the Congo is £4,4.00,000, plus which lias not yet been repaid 1 to Belgium. If Belgium had not- annexed the Congo her dense population would 1 have been driven to China, to Persia*, or the Argentine. and though emigration to the Congo has not been .so rapid-as might bp, wished owing to previous conditions, yet it does afford an open -door for colonisation, which wall an time prove more valuable. . It has been thought by many that it wouM be advisable h© seize a suitable* occasion for getting rid of the Congo, and l thus to; spare our country the troubles and difficulties >of colonisation. t am not of that opinion. 'Belgium ha-s .countless interests and enterprises in the' iCbngo, and no one could -expect us, after twenty-five years of struggle, to pass -over to another any of the advantages gained. It will be a longtime before’the Congo native will be fit to be freed from European domination—which must be the air of all socialists —if he is not to be to IralL bade Into a savage condition. .. But if ther way is long, each step ;in advance leads to the end, and despite all the crimes and miseries or the. Congo we have the undying hope that there as elsewhere, the last word will be that of humanity.