CONGO REFORMS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 520, 29 May 1909, Page 5

CONGO REFORMS.

GREAT DANGERS OF POLICY. SIR E. GREY'S ATTITUDE, RIVER BLOCKADE WOULD RAISE A ■.'•..' ' . GRAVE ISSUE. ■-./'., (dy TiwoßAPn—PßEea association—coriiuoHT.) (Roc. May 28, 10.16.p.m.) ■ London, May 28. The House of Commons has adjourned til) Thursday. A discursive .debate preceded the 'adjournment. '' .. "'; . The Secretary for Foreign Affaire, Sir Edward Grey, deprecated norvousness with regard to foreign affairs. Ho said the troubles in the Near East had been succeeded by comparative 1 quiet. ' v . , : Ho denied that the Government had been too cautious with regard to tho Congo question. If not rationally, handled, this question might cause European difficulties, compared with which those of the last few months would; bo, child's 'play. A blockadi of'tie-Congo River would raise a European question, of the gravest kind. : , fiELGIUM'S DELAYED ,REPLY, ' In the.House of Commons on February 25 the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward Grey, said ho could not believe that there waa any likelihood that the state of 'things in the Congo would become worse, for the annexation ,by Belgium ensured publioity' and V.the Belgian"Government was responsible- to -!the Belgian-Parliament. If the Parliament of this country had realised ivhat thosystem in the Congo was going, to 'be under . tho .former independent Government, there would havo been no recognition of it. But if Belgium now made the administration of the Congo humane, if she brought it in spirit and , Vactice-into aooord With the administration in our neighbouring Afrioan colonies, no country would congratulate Belgium more, warmly than Great Britain. But i?e could not countersign a eeoond time the system of administration that had existed in the past. No further aotion was praoticable: till the receipt of Belgium's reply to the-British N6te.- Subsequently Sir E. Grey reafflrmed'to a deputation , that Britain expected Belgium to fulfil treaty obligations, .