The Casement Report 6

The Casement Report 6

The legality of a tax is, therefore, not affected by the mode of its

payment, whether in money or in kind, so long as the amount is not

excessive. It is certainly not so in the Congo, where the work done by

the native does not represent more than forty hours’ work a-month. Such

work, moreover, is paid for, and the tax in kind thus gives the native

as it were some return for his labour.

 

Payment of taxes is obligatory everywhere; and non-payment involves

measures of compulsion. The regulations under which the hut-tax is

levied impose on the native, for non-payment, such penalties as

imprisonment and forced labour. Nor in the Congo is payment of taxes

optional. Repressive measures have occasionally been rendered necessary

elsewhere by the refusal of natives to conform to the law, _e.g._, the

disturbances at Sierra Leone, in connexion with which an English

publicist, speaking of the police force, states:--

 

“Between July 1894 and February 1896 no fewer than sixty-two

convictions, admittedly representing a small proportion of offences

actually committed, were recorded against them for flogging, plundering,

and generally maltreating the natives.”

 

Further instances might be recalled of the opposition encountered among

native populations to the institution of governmental regulations.

Civilization necessarily comes into collision with their savage

instincts and barbarous customs and habits; and it can be understood

that they submit but impatiently to, and even try to escape from, a

state of society which seems to them to be restrictive of their licence

and excesses. It frequently happens in Africa that an exodus of natives

takes place from one territory to another, in the hope of finding beyond

the frontier a Government less well established or less strong, and of

thus freeing themselves from all obligations and restraints. Natives of

the State may quite well, under the influence of considerations of this

kind, have crossed into neighbouring territories, although no kind of

emigration on a large scale, such as is referred to in the English note,

has ever been reported by the Commandants of the frontier provinces. On

the contrary, it is a fact that natives in the Upper Nile region who had

settled in British territory have returned to the left bank in

consequence of the imposition of new taxes by the English authorities.

Besides, if it is these territories which are alluded to, the

information contained in the note would seem to be in contradiction with

other particulars furnished, for instance, by Sir Harry Johnston.

 

“This much I can speak of with certainty and emphasis, that from the

British frontier near Fort George to the limit of my journeys into the

Mbuba country of the Congo Free State, up and down the Semliki, the

natives appear to be prosperous and happy.... The extent to which they

were building their villages and cultivating their plantations within

the precincts of Fort Mbeni showed that they had no fear of the

Belgians.”

 

Major H. H. Gibbons, who was for several months on the Upper Nile,

writes:--

 

“Having had occasion to know many officers, and to visit their stations

in the Congo State, I am convinced that their behaviour has been much

misunderstood by the press. I have quoted as a proof my experience,

which is at variance with an article recently published in the English

press, in which they are accused of great cruelties.”

 

The declaration of last June, of which a copy is inclosed, has disposed

of the criticisms directed against the public forces of the State, by

pointing out that recruitment for them is regulated by law, and that it

is only one man in every 10,000 who is affected. To say that “the method

of obtaining men for military service is often but little different from

that formerly employed to obtain slaves” is to misunderstand the

carefully drawn regulations which have, on the contrary, been issued to

check abuses. Levies take place in each district; the district

Commissioners settle the mode of conscription in agreement with the

native Chiefs. Voluntary enlistment, and numerous re-enlistments, easily

fill up the ranks, which only reach, all told, the moderate total of

15,000 men.

 

Those who allege, as the note says, that “the men composing the armed

force of the State were in many cases recruited from the most warlike

and savage tribes” must be unaware that the public forces are recruited

from every province, and from the whole population. It is inconceivable

that the authorities of a State, with due regard to its interests,

should form an army out of undisciplined and savage elements, and

instances are to be found--such as the excesses said to have been

perpetrated by irregular levies in Uganda, and the revolts which

formerly occurred in the Congo--which, on the contrary, render it

necessary that special care should be exercised in raising armed forces.

The European establishment, consisting of Belgian, Italian, Swedish,

Norwegian, and Danish officers, maintains strict discipline, and it

would be vain to seek the actual facts alluded to in the assertion that

the soldiers “not infrequently terrorized over their own officers.” Such

an assertion is as unfounded as the one “that compulsion is often

exercised by irresponsible native soldiers, uncontrolled by an European

officer.” For a long time past the authorities have been alive to the

danger arising from the existence of stations of negro soldiers, who

inevitably abuse their authority, as recognized in the Report of Sir D.

Chalmers on the insurrection in Sierra Leone. In the Congo such stations

have been gradually abolished.

 

Those who do not refuse to accept patent facts will recognize that of

the reproaches levied at the State, the most unjust is the statement

“that no attempt at any administration of the natives is made, and that

the officers of the Government do not apparently concern themselves with

such work.”

 

It is astonishing to come across such an assertion in a despatch from a

Government, one of whose members, Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary of

State for Foreign Affairs, stated on the 20th May last:--

 

“There was no doubt that the administration of the Congo Government had

been marked by a very high degree of a certain kind of administrative

development. There were railways, there were steamers upon the river,

hospitals had been established, and all the machinery of elaborate

judicial and police systems had been set up.”

 

Another member of the House of Commons acknowledged--

 

“That the Congo State had done good work in excluding alcoholic liquor

from the greater part of their domain; that they had established a

certain number of hospitals, had diminished small-pox by means of

vaccination, and had suppressed the Arab Slave Trade.”

 

However limited these admissions, still they contradict the assertion

now made that “the natives are left entirely to themselves, so far as

any assistance in their government or in their affairs is concerned.”

 

Such does not seem to have been the conclusion at which Mr. Pickersgill,

the English Consul, had arrived as long ago as 1898.

 

“Has the welfare of the African,” he asks, “been duly cared for in the

Congo State?” He answers: “The State has restricted the liquor trade ...

it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the service which is being

rendered by the Congo Government to its subjects in this matter....

Intertribal wars have been suppressed over a wide area, and, the

imposition of European authority being steadily pursued, the boundaries

of peace are constantly extending.... The State must be congratulated

upon the security it has created for all who live within the shelter of

its flag and abide by its laws and regulations.... Credit is also due to

the Congo Government in respect of the diminution of cannibalism.... The

yoke of the notorious Arab slave-traders has been broken, and traffic in

human beings amongst the natives themselves has been diminished to a

considerable degree.”

 

This Report also showed that the labour of the native was remunerated,

and gave due credit to the State for its efforts to instruct the young

natives, and to open schools.

 

Since 1898 the general condition of the native has been still further

improved. The system of carriers (“le portage à dos d’homme”), the

hardships of which, so far as the native was concerned, were specially

pointed out by Mr. Pickersgill, has disappeared from those parts of the

country where it was most practised, in consequence of the opening of

railways. Elsewhere motor cars are used as means of transport. The

“sentry,” the station of negro soldiers which the Consul criticized, not

without reason, no longer exists. Cattle have been introduced into every

district. Sanitary Commissions have been instituted. Schools and

workshops have multiplied.

 

“The native,” says the inclosed document,[4] “is better housed, better

clad, and better fed; he is replacing his huts by better built and

healthier dwelling-places; thanks to existing transport facilities, he

is able to obtain the produce necessary to satisfy his new wants;

workshops have been opened for him, where he learns handicrafts, such as

those of the blacksmith, carpenter, mechanic, and mason; he extends his

plantations and, taking example by the white man, learns rational modes

of agriculture; he is always able to obtain medical assistance; he sends

his children to the State school-colonies and to the missionary

schools.”

 

As stated in the House of Commons, it is only right to recognize that

the material and moral regeneration of Central Africa cannot be the work

of a day. The results so far obtained have been considerable, and these

we shall try to consolidate and develop, in spite of the way in which an

effort is being made to hamper the action of the State, which in the

real interests of civilization should rather be promoted.

 

The English note does not show that the economic system of the State is

in opposition to the Berlin Act. It does not meet the points of law and

fact by means of which the State has demonstrated the conformity of its

system of land tenure and concessions with the provisions of that Act.

It does not explain either how or why freedom of trade--a term used at

the Conference of Berlin in its usual, grammatical, and economic

sense--is incomplete in the Congo State because there are landowners

there.

 

The note confuses the utilization of his property by the owner with

trade. The native who collects on behalf of the owner does not become

the owner of what is so collected, and naturally cannot dispose of it to

a third party, any more than a miner can rob the proprietor of the

produce of the mine and dispose of it himself. These rules are in

accordance with the principles of justice and are explained in numerous

documents, such as legal opinions and judicial decisions, some of which

are annexed. His Majesty’s Government do not deny that the State is

justified in allotting domain lands to _bonâ fide_ occupants, or that

the native has no longer any right to the produce of the soil as soon as

the “land is reduced into individual occupation.” The distinction is

without legal foundation. If the State can part with land, it is because

the native is not the owner; by what title could he then retain a right

to the produce of property which has been lawfully acquired by others?

Could it be contended, for instance, that the Lower Congo Railway

Company, or the South Cameroons Company, or the Italian Colonial Trading

Company are, on the ground that they are not at present in occupation,

bound to allow the native to plunder the territories allotted to them?

As a matter of fact, moreover, in the Congo State the appropriation of

lands worked on Government account or by the Concessionary Companies is

an accomplished fact. The State and the Companies have devoted large

sums, amounting to many millions of francs, to the development of the

lands in question, and more especially to that of the forests. There

can, therefore, be no doubt that throughout the territories of the Congo

the State really and completely works its property, just as the Companies really and completely work their Concessions.