THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1909. THE BELGIAN ATROCITIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9668, 6 December 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1909. THE BELGIAN ATROCITIES.

j Sir Edward Grey has on several 1 occasions recently referred in unmistakable terms to the great dangers vyhich the Powers are incurring as long as the Belgian Congo question remains unsettled, nnJ the crusade which has now been started in Englanwith t'ie object of getting the British people to look the Congoland horror in the face, and to recognise their own responsibility towards the miserable Congolese, seems likely to force the question into a prominence which may lead to a demand for a European conference. It is true that Belgium, by means of a treaty of a annexation, undertook last year to take over the Congo Free State from King Leopold, in whom it was vested in 1885 by a conference of the Powers at Berlin, but as there is no guarantee that the iniquitous treatment which King Leopold's agents meted out to the Congo natives will not I be continued by the agents of the Belgian Government, Great Britain has steadily refused to recognise the annexation, and the United States has taken the same course. King Leopold's consideration for handing over the control' of the vast property, which was vested in him by the Powers, in order that he should "ameliorate morally and physically the condition of t'ie natives," is the payment of various huge sums to him by the Belgium Government, one fund of £2 000,000 being granted to him "as v token of gratitude for his great sacrifices on behalf of the Conga " Belgiunj has to get this money and all the other enormous sums which are ear-marked for special purposes in connection with the annexation, and the money has to come out of Congoland. It is regarded as probable that unless the t.rrible punishments of massacre, mutilation, and flogging, which King Leopold employed as the means of getting in his revenues, are employed also hy the Belgian Government, the rubber —that is to sav, the money wi!l no"; be obtainable in sufficient

amount. Hence the refusal of Greal Britain the United States t>

sanction the annexation, pending a guarantee by Belgium that real reforms will be introduced. But Germany has already recognised the annexation, and an intiimti.in h:is been gwn that Germany suopons Bel - gium in its Congo policy. Tlut is where the international shoe pinches. The German press has recently been declarirg that the British-opposition to the annexation is entirely selfish, that tiie alleged scandals are nonexistent, and that Great Britain's rfal object in making trouble is to get the control of Belgian Congoland herself. Utterly basel- ss as are the allegation-, they are eag.rly swallowed by those for whom they are ii - ! ended. Germany is bus a formidable lion in the path of Congo reforms. And German influence h Belgium is correspondingly a'vanced— Belgium, the neutrality of which is guaranteed by the Power?, including Great Britain and the ultimate possession of which is believed to be part of the ambition of German "world policy." Powerful influences are thus at work to force the Congo I questioVi into the forefront of EuroI pean politics.