HOW FOREIGNERS STEAL BRITISH TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 14 September 1907, Page 3

HOW FOREIGNERS STEAL BRITISH TRADE.

A curious development of the Italian export trade to K'lgland has been noticed ill the felt ImHndustry. The factories at llonza and other Lombardy cities have turned their attention to those descriptions 8f felt hats which can be packed in a small compass and pressed into bales, ]ly this means the heavy freights that would have to be paid upon hats separately boxed arc avoided; and, in point of fact, no effort is made to compete with the native industry in hard "howlers"and other hats of that type. As they cimic into England duty free, the Italian;makers, even with the cost of shippi- "added to the factory prices, are able m show an advantage in the London of at least 12</ s per cent, on the i'jiglish price for the goods of the same description. The stylos in question im ude those which are worn at the sea si.le. at lawntennis, and the like, as well \a various shapes of feminine head-wctr which are trimmed by English milium after being reblockcd into the necessa'y shape In some of the Italian factor.es the bulk of tin' work is done by gills, who often tdil from six o'clock in the morning to ten at night for a weekly wage of !»s, tli" supervision being in the hands of two or three foremen earning little more than :10s a week. Mcamvhfc we are filling our workhouses wrV" men and women who would be ; ,,1 t.i wnrk if they could get it to do." The l-'iion starves while the foreigner prosy;-..

CONGO ATROCITIES. NEW ZEALA.SDi-;U'S EXPERIENCES. Mr ». K. McDonald, n l'ort Chalmers boy, lias just returned home fur a holiday after .spending three years in the Congo Free State as master of a river steamer in Hie seme ■ of :i missionary society. Mr MeDjnald lias been subjected to :i gum! many queries since his arrival here, as to the alleged atrocities ill the Congo Free State, and to one of those queries he gave the following description:—"The Slate has been aptly eailed King Leopold's private estate, which is a fair estimate of the position, as it is not under the control of the Belgian Government, but is ruled by the King through a Governor-General, who has a large number of officials under him. The chief product is rubber, and a number of companies have concessions of large tracts of rubber-pro-ducing districts. Their methods of dealing with the natives were severely criticised, so as a result the State assumed control of several of the concessions, but with very little improvement. As a tax, the natives have to gather rubber for the State for forty hours each month; but it is a weil known fact that in many cases the forty hours extend to 300 days a year,'and their failure to get enough rubber to satisfy the officials results in liberal application of a strip of a [legator skin, about half an inch wide, to their naked backs. Rubber is getting scarce, and the natives often have to go long distances inland to procure it. To enforce their demands the Stat? have thousands of native sol.diers, drafted from the most savage tribes, among whom cannibalism is not uncommon. They are supplied with rifles and sent out to compel the natives to keep up the supply. There is no doubt as to their methods—they arc brutal. I have myself seen an old native woman who still liears the mark of a rifle bullet. She was shot down when escaping from a village attacked by the soldiers, who came up and hacked her foot off in order to get the brass ring which she wore round her ankle as an ornament. If any murmurs or complaints are heard from a village, the soldiers are sent to investigate, and every cartridge served out on such an expedition has to be accounted for by the production of the right hand of one of the rebels. If the refractory village is some distance away, the hands aro smoked—on the principle of smoking fish—for preservation, and brought back in baskets. I have se?n one of these trophies myself, and also many natives \yJiosc right hands have been hacked oil to make up for bad markmanship. The country is being impoverished by the continual drain uu its natural resources, and nothing is being don? in the way of improvements or colonising. The natives are also disappearing—many cross the river to French territory—and numerous patches of palm trees mark the sites of what were once large villages. The reports that have reached the outside world are only of happenings near the river. A steamer going up one day was about to call in at a native villag?, but two white officials on the beach waved them oIT. A horrible spectacle could lie seen on shore, however. A fight had evidently taken place, in which the soldiers had been victorious, and they were busy dividing the spoils, which included cutting up the bodies of the victims and serving out human flesh. That the natives are harassed unmercifully is often evident by their pathetic appeals to the missionaries for assistance. Another industry in which the native engages is the collecting of ivory. When a native gets a pair of tusks he has to present the State with one, in return for which the other is stamped with the Stat? stamp, without which it cannot go out of the country. The agents who collect the ivory are paid by bonuses. The natives are very friendly with the Englishers. When the Royal Commission visited the Upper Congo it made an exhaustive inquiry, but the report was never published. The Gov-ernor-General had made a visit, and reported favorably on the state of affairs, previous to the arrival of the Commission, and it was a significant fact that he committed suicide the night ho received its report. The Daily Mail had a correspondent out recently, and his impressions of the country will probably soon be published. The State is antagonistic to the missions, and watch the stations closely to see all their transactions with the natives. WVn they failed to prohibit the use of timber for fuel on the mission steamers, they put a tax on it, although the country is heavily wooded to the water's edge. Unsuccessful efforts were also made to prevent the boats from flying the red ensign."—Dunedin Star.