BELGAIN BARBARITY.
Dr Harry Guinness who visited Australia about two years ago; has been conducting a speci.l campaign in Scotland on behalf of the oppressed Congo peoples. No doubt some will have seen from English papers accounts of the terrible state of affairs in that oppressed land, and Dr Guinness has felt it to be his duty this winter season to create as much public interest as possible, to strengthen the bands of the Home Government, so that pressure may be brought to bear upon the Congo Free State authorities to put an end to the evils which exist. " Congo Slavery " is quite at variance with the name Congo " Free " State. The name shows what the Powers intended when they assembled at Berlin in I#B4 to create the ne -v state : " To bring the natives of Africa within the pale of civilisation ; solicitude for the moral and material well-being of the native population; to introduce them to the benefits of civilisation." These words were spoken by Prince Bismarck at the Berlin Conference. The Congo region has been mainly explored at the instance of the King of the Belgians, and to him and his International African Association, now recognised by the Powers as the Government of the Congo, was entrusted the duty of carrying out the humanitarian programme. What bight withered this fair bud of promise? The simple answer is " rubber," which exists in large quantities in the Congo. It can only be gathered by natives. The natives don't like work. They doa'fc want the white man's wealth ; but the white man wants rubber.
The white man's gred is cruel; the natives must gather rubber The state, holding half the shares in the rubber trusts, supports their operations with the power of its native soldiery, now numbering 16,000. Each native must gather 41bs of rubber every fortnight Failure is rewarded by severe flogging —l5O strokes with a " chicotte " (a stripjof hippo hide), mutillation,* or death Driven to work by the native soldiery, called " guards of the forest," if the Congolese rise in despair against them wholesale legalised slaughter ensues An! so humanitarian considerations were lost s'ght of in gratifying a fev -ris i lust for gold. Can you read this
From 'Sydney Morning Her ild j cf April 15th.
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Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 423, 2 June 1904, Page 5
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378BELGAIN BARBARITY. Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 423, 2 June 1904, Page 5
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