The Daily News TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27. THE CONGO HORRORS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81894, 27 November 1906, Page 2

The Daily News TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27. THE CONGO HORRORS.

King Leopold, it would seem from Monday's cables, is beginning to fuel alarmed at the prospect- of uie Powers interfering with the horrible state of things existing under his management in the Congo basin. A fc'w days ago it- was cabled that Sir Edward Gi«y, Foreign Secretary, had informed a deputation which waited 011 him that isolated Biiiisn action respecting the Congo scandals was undesirable, but if tiro present regime was continued the Government would summon a conference of the Powers. King Leopold now, it is reported, is manoeuvring to sudden.y create vesWd interests in the Congo, by granting mining and other concessions to foreigners, in trder to obtain the support of cortain parties in tne concessionaries' countries. This proceeding is locked upon in Begium as tantamount to a heavy mortgage on Belgium's inneritance. It is but natural ihat the people of Belgium and their King should resent any interference by the Powers. King Leopold claims the Congo as "essentially a personal undertaking," in which the Powers have no right to intervene. In one of his decrees he said: "My rights 011 the Congo are indivisable ; they are the result of my

toil and of the expenditure of my money. Ii is essential that I shou d proclaim these rights aloud, for Belgium does not possess any in the Congo except- those which emanate ftom 111 c. if lam careful not to allow my rights to lapse, it is because Belgium without them would have no rights at ah. For myself,' he continued, "1 consider myself morally bound to notify the counay wiicn, without prejudice, I am of opinion tnat the moment is favourable for examining the question of annexation. I have nothing 10 say at present.'' Leopold 11. has now held sup'renie power in the enormous basin of the Congo for twenty yeais. lie is at the head of the so-called Congo Government, which consists mainly of his creatures, and derives his power entirely from the assent of the signatories of the Ber.in Act of ISSS, article 5 of which says: "No Power which exercises or shall exercise sovereign rignts in the above-mcntioneid regions shall be allowed to grant thereon a manopoly or favour of any kind in matters of trade." And, again, the same instrument says tnat "the trade of all nations siial enjoy complete freedom."

IIOW King Leupod has abused his privilege is well known to our reaileis. 'l'iie massacres of ihe Aunentans, the devastation of Alacetlonian villages, the cruellies perpetrated on the Jews in Holy Kus=ta, have been' but passing incidents compaied to tile stcauy and continuous loiiure and extermination of the Congo natives by the agents of a Christian King and ii clique of capitalists, whose sole object was the immediate extortion oi money, no ma iter at w hai suffering to tiie natives, or at what me rievablc loss to mankind in future. Fven ins own scll-appoiued Commission, which inquired imo the charges of oaibarity made against the Congo authorises, wcie compelled to report upon Wholesale murders and airocilies. Mutilations were admitted, llands and feet were cut olf living men and w .ne-n. The Commission *a» several mutilated persons. Men who did not bring in sulhcicnt rubble were tloggeij with the cliicouc—the Commission said so. They were imprisoned, and in the prisons iiiey died front want of the necessaries of ife. Tug women were takon from the villages and held as hostages for the bringing in of the rubber, exposed to the iust and fury of the aimed black soldiery. Without the puor jusuticaiion uf any attack or resistance of any kind, tiie Commission found proof cf "suiprises of villages,'' "furious pursuits, 'many enemies killed and wounded, 11 "prisoners,' "booty," and such-ike—ail, in me language of die CommisJoncrs, solely in consequence of a failure to procui'u sulficieiiL qujiiUites oi lubber.

Mr E. D. Murel, in his boak.. "King Leopold':, Rule in Africa,' wrote: "ihe tale is lold, t,ie lale of King Leopold's rule in Anica. A piratical expedition on a sane inci'iyfiijiy colossal. The peritenon of its hypocrisy, the deptn ut its low cutfning, its pitiable intrigue*, the lllimitableness of its egotism, its moral hideousness, the easiness and madness of its climes—the hcait sicken and the mind rebels at the thought of them. A peipetual nightmare reeking wilh vapuurs of vile ambitious—cynical, fantastic, appalling. Destroying, decimating", degrading, its poisonoas breath sweeps through the forest of the Congo. Men fall beneath it as grass beneath tlie scythe, by s.aughter, famine, torture, sickness, and misery. Women and eliildten flee from it, but not fast enough, though the mother destroys Uie unburn life within her that Ja-r feet may drag less lie-:!v11 >' through tlie buMi. There has been nothing quite comparable with it since the world was made. The world can never see its like again." Tile suiprising thing is that the Po.wers iiave not interfered bctoie unv, am! run a stop to the unspeakable and hoirible pi,iciires associated witli the regime of King Leopod and li's satellites, In tlie name of humanity and civilisation, it is to be hoped that tlie human monsters responsible lor Hica fiendish and atrocious aets will be soon brought to tln ii. knees and shown that there ij a limit io (he eiidurai.ee ot even ilie phlegmatic Powers of tlm world".