Page:EB1911 - Volume 06.djvu/951

 the Lomami river and the great lakes, and south of the Aruwimi and Welle districts forms the Province Orientale. It is divided into zones, of which the chief are Stanley Falls, Ponthierville, and that administered by the Katanga committee. The districts are also subdivided into zones. In 1898 the territory in the valley of the upper Nile leased from Great Britain was placed for administrative purposes under the same régime as the districts.

Judicial Machinery.—Courts of first instance have been instituted in the various districts, and there is a court of appeal at Boma which revises the decisions of the inferior tribunals. There is a further appeal in all cases where the sum in dispute exceeds a thousand pounds, to a superior council at Brussels, composed of a number of jurisconsults who sit as a cour de cassation.

Religion and Instruction.—The religion of the native population is that commonly called fetishism (see supra, Inhabitants). The state makes no provision for their religious teaching, but by the Berlin Act missionaries of all denominations are secured perfect freedom of action. The state has established agricultural and technical colonies for lads up to the age of fourteen. These colonies make provision for the training of boys recruited from those rescued from slavery, from orphans, and from children abandoned or neglected by their parents. Practical instruction is given in various subjects, but the main object is to provide recruits for the armed force of the state, and only such lads as are unfitted to be soldiers are drafted into other occupations. Missionaries have displayed great activity on the Congo. In 1907 there were about 500 missionaries in the colony, divided in about equal proportion between Protestants and Roman Catholics. They maintain over 100 stations. The missionaries do not confine themselves to religious instruction, but have schools for ordinary and technical training. There are two Roman Catholic bishops.

Finance.—Revenue is derived from customs, direct taxes (on Europeans), transport charges, &c., and from the exploitation of the domain lands. (The prohibition of the import of alcohol deprives the state of a ready source of revenue.) Nearly all the funds required in the work of founding the Free State were provided by Leopold II. out of his privy purse, and for some time after the recognition of the state this system was continued. In the first ten years of his work on the Congo King Leopold is reported to have spent £1,200,000 from his private fortune. The first five years of the existence of the state were greatly hampered by the provision of the Berlin Act prohibiting the imposition of any duties on goods imported into the Congo region, but at the Brussels conference, 1890, a declaration was signed by the powers signatory to the Berlin Act, authorizing the imposition of import duties not exceeding 10% ad valorem, except in the case of spirits, which were to be subject to a higher duty. By agreement with France and Portugal, a common tariff (6% on most goods imported, 10% on the export of ivory and india-rubber, 5% on other exports) was adopted by these powers and the Congo Free State.

Funds for the administration were also obtained by loans. In July 1887 bonds bearing interest (from January 1900) at 2% were issued to the amount of £443,000 to represent sums advanced to the founders of the state. The bulk of these bonds (£426,000) were issued to King Leopold, but in January 1895 His Majesty cancelled the bonds in his possession. In 1888 and 1889 bearer bonds to the amount of £2,800,000 were issued out of an authorized issue of £6,000,000. The balance of the loan was issued in 1902. The bonds are redeemable in 99 years by annual drawings, and are entitled to an addition of 5% per annum when drawn. The redemption fund is administered by a committee representing the bondholders. The Belgian government in 1890 advanced a sum of £1,000,000, and in 1895 two further sums of £211,000 and £60,000, the former to enable the state to repay a loan and so prevent the forfeiture of an immense territory which had been pledged as security to an Antwerp banker, and the latter to balance the 1895 budget. In October 1896 a loan of £60,000 was raised at 4%, and in June 1898 a further sum of £500,000 was raised at the same rate of interest. In October 1900 a 4% loan of £2,000,000 was issued for the purpose of public works, including railways, and in February 1904 a decree was issued authorizing the creation of bonds to bearer for £1,200,000, at 3%. From 1890 to 1900 King Leopold is stated to have made a grant of £40,000 per annum from his private purse to the public funds. In 1901 Belgium renounced the repayment of its loans and the payment of interest, reserving the right to annex the state, whose financial obligations to Belgium would revive only if that kingdom should renounce its rights to annex the Congo. In 1886 the total revenue of the country was under £3000, derived from the state domains. The revenue from this source, obtained almost entirely from rubber and ivory, had risen in 1891 to £52,000, in 1896 to £235,000, in 1900 to £448,000, and in 1905 to £660,000. These figures do not, however, disclose the total profits which accrued to the Free State from its trading operations in the Congo. Official returns placed the public expenditure at a higher figure than the revenue. The totals given for 1905 were: revenue, £1,197,466; expenditure, £1,392,026. The monetary system is based on the gold standard, and the coinage is the same as that of the Latin union. On the lower Congo transactions are in cash, but on the middle and upper Congo the use of coins in place of barter or the native brass wire currency makes but slow progress. Moreover, save in the lower Congo state payments (down to 1908) were made in trade goods.

Defence.—The army consists of African troops officered by Europeans. Some of the men are recruited from the neighbouring territories, but the greater part consists of locally raised levies, recruited partly by voluntary enlistment and partly by the enforced enlistment of a certain number of men in each district, who are selected by the commissary in conjunction with the local chiefs. The effective strength is about 15,000. There are over 200 European officers, and over 300 European sergeants. The term of service for volunteers does not exceed seven years, while the militiamen raised by enforced enlistment serve for five years on active service, and for two years in the reserve. The artillery includes Krupps, Maxims and Nordenfeldts. A fort has been erected at Chinkakassa near Boma, commanding the river below the Falls, and there is another fort at Kinshassa on Stanley Pool to protect Leopoldville and the railway terminus. The governor-general is commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the state, and the commissaries are in command of the military forces in their districts. In the 1891 budget the expenditure on the army was given at £90,000, and by 1900 it had risen to £312,000. In 1905 the charge fell to £221,241.

—(1) Official: Protocols and General Act of the West African Conference (London, 1885). (Annex I to Protocol 9 contains copies of the treaties by which the International Assn. of the Congo obtained the recognition of the European governments.) Documents diplomatiques: Affaires du Congo, 1884–1895 (Paris, 1895) (a French “Yellow Book”). L’État indépendant du Congo à l’exposition de Bruxelles (Brussels, 1897). Bulletin officiel de l’état indépendant du Congo (Brussels, 1885–1908) (published monthly, and replaced, November 1908, by the Bulletin officiel du Congo belge). Documents concernant le Congo, imprimés par ordre de la chambre des représentants de Belgique (1891–1895). Exposé des motifs du projet de loi approuvant l’annexion du Congo à la Belgique (documents parlementaires, No. 91) (Brussels, 1895). Annales du musée du Congo (flora, fauna, ethnography, &c.) (Brussels, 1898 et seq.). Despatch in regard to alleged ill-treatment of natives and to the existence of trade monopolies in the Congo (London, 1903). Correspondence and report from His Majesty’s consul at Boma respecting the administration of the Congo (London, 1904) contains a lengthy report from Mr Roger Casement, the British consul, condemning in several respects the treatment of natives by the state). Further correspondence respecting the administration of the state is contained in the white papers Africa, No. 1 of 1905, 1906, 1907, Nos. 1 and 2 of 1908 and No. 1 of 1909. Rapport de la commission d’enquête dans les territoires de l’état (Brussels, Nos. 9 and 10 of the Bulletin officiel for 1905; a voluminous document; the tenor of the report is indicated in the section History). O. Louwers, Lois en vigueur dans l’état indépendant du Congo (Brussels, 1905).

(2) Non-official: Le Mouvement géographique, a weekly magazine, founded in 1884 by A. J. Wauters, and devoted chiefly to Congo affairs. A Bibliographie du Congo, 1880–1895 (a list of 3800 books, pamphlets, maps and notices), compiled by A. J. Wauters and A. Buyl, was published at Brussels in 1895. The most important books in this bibliography are The Congo and Founding of its Free State, by (Sir) H. M. Stanley (London, 1885), and Le Congo, historique, diplomatique, physique, politique, économique, humanitaire et coloniale, by A. Chapaux (Brussels, 1894). Stanley’s book is of historic importance, describing the work he and his helpers accomplished on the Congo between 1879 and 1884; and Chapaux’s volume gives the