THE CONGO SETTLEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 66, 7 March 1908, Page 2

THE CONGO SETTLEMENT.

I'UKuhD LAU)i; ABOLISHED.

Brussels, .March 5. king Lipoid and the Weigan (jovem. ment nave decided to abolish forced l a . bur in the Congo Free State.

ARE THE CALUMNIES JUSTIFIED?

In a letter to the Editor, a .correspondent, "Fair Play," writes as follows:

King U'opuld mid his Congo administrators have been kept prominently before the public lor months past. If Hie alleged charges of inhumanity, barbarity mid cruelty towards the native* of the Congo were true, all should admit that the denunciations of such .conduct in the public press were more than justified. 1 am, however, in a position to prove that the alleged charges of illtreatment, if not a wholesale tissue of libels and calumnies, are at any rale grossly exaggerated. .Men of various nationalities, of unbiassed mind, without an axe to grind, have gone to tlw Congo, lived there tor a considerable time, ami cumc away most favorauly impressed with Belgian adminstration of the country. Some of those travellers have committed their impressions to writing and thus unwittingly pro* l vided h means of defending the Belgian King's rule before the English-speaking world and of refuting the monstrous. slanders heaped upon his royal head. In his work, "Across West Africa," whk'h has just been published by Hurst and I3lackett, Mr. A. Henry Savage Ijaudon touches on the Congo and unhesitating- | ly asserts that the reports of atrocities are false. "All I can say," he observes, "of the Congo Free State is that th* country was kept in excellent order, that the natives were happy and well cared for, and that the land far from being damaged, was greatly improved by the construction of splendid roads, by enormous plantations of rubber, rice, millett, maize, cotton; by the use tablishment of beautiful cattle farms, by up-to-date schools and excellent hospital arrangements for the natives." Not less significant and quite in harmony with the above testimony js the evidence which 1 am going to quote, being an extract from a letter of Colow.l James Harrison, the well-known Britisii traveller, which appeared in the Times. He states that he visited fifty different tribes and hundreds of villages and had no unpleasant experiences. On the contrary, lie was received with kindnefis far different to any he had ever met with among Britisii African natives. There had, he said, been no mention of ill-treatment, and the statement that the soldiers were allowed full liberty to plunder the natives was by no means correct. Writing to the Journal of Commerce he remarks:—"l imagine if King Leopold chose to remove that moat excellent law forbidding the importation of drink in any form he could easily raise a Wry large extra revenue and then be in a position to reduce the hours of labor or amount of rubber col. lected monthly by each native and so give the male population of the Congo still more time in the kraal to sleep, smoke, and ill-treat and make a beast of burden of his long-suffering -woman.' kind. Personally, I favor the King's method, and am foolish enough to l«eHove that opium and drink have more lives to answer for under our rule, thjii the alleged ill-treatment of natives by Belgian officials. After these quotation—and they might lie multiplied— What is to be said of the campaign of libel and calumny against King Leopold and the adminstrators of the Congo? Every reader will say that it is a shameful method of treating the ruler of a friendly State. Its object is manifestly not the improvement of the Congo State but the promotion of selfish objects whether national or individual.