The Casement Report 5

The Casement Report 5

The English note observes that it is within the last few years that a

definite shape has been assumed by the campaign conducted in England

against the Congo State, on the twofold pretext of the ill-treatment of

natives and the existence of commercial monopolies.

 

It is indeed worthy of remark that this campaign dates from the time

when the prosperity of the State became assured. The State had been

founded for years, and administered in the same way as it is now, its

principles in regard to the State-ownership of vacant lands, and the

manner in which its armed forces were organized and recruited, were

known to the public, without any interest in the matter being shown by

the philanthropists and traders to whose opinion the note begins by

referring. This was the period during which the State Budget could only

be balanced by means of the King-Sovereign’s subsidies and Belgian

loans, and when the commerce of the Congo did not attract attention. The

term “Congo atrocities” was at that time only used in connexion with

“the alleged ill-treatment of African natives by English and other

adventurers in the Congo Free State.”[3] After 1895 the trade of the

Congo State developed remarkably, and the amount of its exports shows a

progressive increase from 10 millions in 1895 to 50 millions in 1902. It

is also about this time that the anti-Congo movement took shape. As the

State gave increased proof of vitality and progress, the campaign became

more active, reliance being placed on a few individual and isolated

cases with a view to using the interests of humanity as a pretext and

concealing the real object of a covetousness which, in its impatience,

has betrayed itself in the writings of pamphleteers and in the speeches

of Members of the House of Commons, in which the abolition and partition

of the Congo State has been clearly put forward.

 

Such being the object in view, it became necessary to bring a whole

series of charges against the State. So far as the humanitarian side of

the question is concerned, the alleged cases of violence offered to

natives have once more been brought forward and re-edited _ad

infinitum_. For in all the meetings, writings, and speeches which have

latterly been directed against the State, it is always the same facts

which are brought up, and the same evidence which is produced. With

regard to the economic side of the question, the State has been accused

of having violated the Act of Berlin, notwithstanding the legal opinions

of such lawyers as are most qualified to speak to the point, which

afford ample legal justification both for its commercial and for its

land system. With regard to the political side, a heresy in

international law has been imagined, viz., that a State, the

independence and sovereignty of which are absolute, should, at the same

time, owe its position to the intervention of foreign Powers.

 

With regard to the cases of ill-treatment of natives, we attach special

importance to those which, according to the note, have been reported in

the despatches of His Majesty’s Consular Agents. At the sitting of the

House of Commons on the 11th March, 1903, Lord Cranborne referred to

these official documents, and we have requested through his Excellency

Sir C. Phipps that the British Government will make known to us the

facts alluded to. We repeat the request.

 

The Government of the State have, however, never denied that crimes and

offences are committed in the Congo, as in every other country or

Colony. The note itself recognizes that these offences have been brought

before the Tribunals, and that the criminals have been punished. The

conclusion to be drawn from this is that the State fulfils its mission;

the conclusion actually drawn is that “many individual instances of

cruelty have taken place in the Congo State,” and that “the number of

convictions falls considerably short of the number of offences actually

committed.” This deduction does not appear necessarily to follow. It

would seem more logical to say that the severe sentences inflicted will

serve as a wholesome example, and that a decrease of crime may on that

account be looked for. If some offences have indeed, in the extensive

territories of the State, escaped the vigilance of the judicial

authorities, this is a circumstance which is not peculiar to the Congo

State.

 

The English note proceeds chiefly on hypotheses and suppositions: “It

was alleged.... It is reported.... It is also reported....” and it even

says that “His Majesty’s Government do not know precisely to what extent

these accusations may be true.” This is an acknowledgment that, in the

eyes of the British Government themselves, the accusations in question

are neither established nor proved. And, indeed, the violence, the

passion, and the improbability of many of these accusations must raise

doubt in an impartial mind as to their genuineness. To give but one

example:--a great deal has been made of the statement that, in a train

coming down from Leopoldville to Matadi, three carriages were full of

slaves, a dozen of whom were in chains and guarded by soldiers. The

Governor-General was asked for a report on the case. He replied: “The

individuals represented as composing a convoy of slaves were, the great

majority of them (125), levies proceeding from the district of

Lualaba-Kasai, Lake Leopold II, and the Bangalas to the camp in the

Lower Congo. Annexed you will find lists of these persons. As regards

the men in chains, they were certain individuals on whom sentence had

been passed by the territorial Tribunal at Basoko, and who were on their

way to undergo their sentence at the central prison at Boma. They are

Nos. 3642 to 3649 on the prison register at Boma.”

 

In the same way, quite a recent “interview,” in which the usual

accusations of cruelty were reproduced, is due to a person formerly in

the employ of the State, who was “declared unfit for service,” and who

has failed to persuade the State to accept his proposal to write for the

press articles favourable to the Administration.

 

The note ignores the replies, contradictions, and corrections which the

attacks on the Agents of the State have occasioned at the various times

when they have taken place. It ignores the official declarations

publicly made by the Government of the State in June last, after the

debate in the House of Commons on the 20th May, the report of which is

annexed to the note. We also annex the text of these declarations which

dealt, by anticipation, with the considerations set forth in the

despatch of the 8th August.

 

The only fresh cause of complaint which the note brings

forward--doubtless with the object of explaining the not unimportant

fact that the English Consul, who has resided in the Congo since 1901,

does not appear to support, by his personal authority, the accusations

of private individuals--is that this Agent has been “principally

occupied in the investigation of complaints preferred by British

subjects.” The impression which one would derive from this is that such

complaints have been exceptionally numerous. No doubt the Consul has, on

different occasions, communicated with the Administration at Boma in the

interests of his countrymen, but the subjects of his representations, if

one may judge by such of their number as the English Legation has had to

bring to the notice of the Central Government at Brussels, do not

appear, either in number or importance, to have been more than matters

of every day administrative routine: some cases in particular concerned

the regulation of the succession to property in the Congo left by

deceased English subjects; the object in others was to repair errors of

judicial procedure, such as occur elsewhere, and it is not even alleged

that the proper action has not been taken upon these representations.

The same Consul, who was appointed in 1898, wrote to the

Governor-General on the 2nd July, 1901, as follows:--

 

“I pray believe me when I express now, not only for myself, but for my

fellow-countrymen in this part of Africa, our very sincere appreciation

of your efforts on behalf of the general community--efforts to promote

goodwill among all and to bring together the various elements of our

local life.”

 

Nor do the predecessors of Mr. R. Casement--for English Consuls with

jurisdiction in the Congo were appointed by His Majesty’s Government as

long ago as 1888--appear to have been absorbed in the examination of

innumerable complaints; at all events, that is not the view taken in the

Report (the only one published) by Consul Pickersgill, who, by the mere

fact of giving an account of his journey into the interior of the Congo

as far as Stanley Falls, disproves the alleged impossibility for the

English Consular Agents to form an opinion _de visu_ in regard to every

part of their district.

 

With regard to the charges against the administrative system of the

State, the note deals with taxes, public armed forces, and what is

termed forced labour.

 

It is, at bottom, the contributions made by the Congo natives to the

public charges which are criticized, as if there existed a single

country or Colony in which the inhabitants do not, under one form or

another, bear a part in such charges. A State without resources is

inconceivable. On what legitimate grounds could the exemption of natives

from all taxes be based, seeing that they are the first to benefit by

the material and moral advantages introduced into Africa? As they have

no money, a contribution in the shape of labour is required from them.

It has been said that, if Africa is ever to be redeemed from barbarism,

it must be by getting the negro to understand the meaning of work by the

obligation of paying taxes:--

 

“It is a question (of native labour) which has engaged my most careful

attention in connection with West Africa and other Colonies. To listen

to the right honourable gentleman, you would almost think that it would

be a good thing for the native to be idle. I think it is a good thing

for him to be industrious; and by every means in our power we must teach

him to work.... No people ever have lived in the world’s history who

would not work. In the interests of the natives all over Africa, we have

to teach them to work.”

 

Such was the language used by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons on

the 6th August, 1901; and still more recently he expressed himself as

follows:--

 

“We are all of us taxed, and taxed heavily. Is that a system of forced

labour?... To say that because we put a tax on the native therefore he

is reduced to a condition of servitude and of forced labour is, to my

mind, absolutely ridiculous.... It is perfectly fair to my mind that the

native should contribute something towards the cost of administering the

country.” (House of Commons, the 9th March, 1903.)

 

“If that really is the last word of civilization, if we are to proceed

on the assumption that the nearer the native or any human being comes to

a pig the more desirable is his condition, of course I have nothing to

say.... I must continue to believe that, at all events, the progress of

the native in civilization will not be secured until he has been

convinced of the necessity and the dignity of labour. Therefore, I think

that anything we reasonably can do to induce the native to labour is a

desirable thing.”

 

And he defended the principle of taxing the native on the ground that

“the existence of the tax is an inducement to him to work.” (House of

Commons, the 24th March, 1903.)

 

Moreover, it is to be observed that in nearly every part of Africa the

natives are taxed. In the Transvaal every native pays a “head tax” of

2_l._; in the Orange River Colony he is subject to a “poll tax;” in

Southern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Uganda, and Natal a “hut

tax” is levied; in Cape Colony we find a “hut tax” and a “labour tax;”

in German East Africa also a tax is levied on huts, payable either in

money, in kind, or in labour. This species of tax has also been applied

in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, where payment could be made “in kind

by rice or palm nuts,” and it has been suggested that work on roads and

useful works should be accepted in lieu of payment in money or produce.