MISERY IN THE CONGO.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9101, 29 May 1908, Page 7

MISERY IN THE CONGO.

SLEEPING SICKNESS DEVASTATING the: country. A Brussels correspondent writes: — I have had a lons interview with a Belgian who returned from the Congo, who"said that the situation in the is getting worse daily. Sleep%ig sickness, which was almost unknown twenty years ago, is causing terrible havoc. In numerous villages the passing traveller finds children, women ,and old men lying in their huts suffering from this disease, the male population from 15 upwards having been ordered away tor porterage or for gathering rubber. The men have no time 'to occupy tlrGn - selves with their own piantatiens, hence there is .atrocious miser). Thousands of negroes have run away to escape forced labour, to perish '.•miserably in fie forest from sleeping • sickness. The Reform Commission in 19C6 - decided upon the creation of lazarets to fight the disease, but not one was * built, and not one post has received a penny. The unhappy condition of the natives is the cause of the revolts which are going on, and which the Administration is unable to quell. Jlist now half the area of the Congo is in a state of revolt, and all the . Administration can do is to prevent news from leiking out. My inform-ant-adds:—-"Frankly, the situation is bad; you can repeat this in England."