No. 13.
Mr. Tree to
Mr. Bayard
.
Brussels , March 16, 1886. (Received March 29.)
Sir: I have the honor, in acknowledging the receipt of your instruction No. 28, of the 24th ultimo, to inform you that I have, in accordance with your request, sent to you by this mail, under separate cover, as printed matter, two additional copies of the Official Bulletin No. 2 of the Independent State of the Congo. I have also placed under the same cover two copies each of the Official Bulletins 1 and 2, of 1886, which have been just issued by the Government.
- No. 1 seems to be a republication of the decree organizing the judicial system of the State, and announcing the appointment of the judges of the court.
- No. 2 publishes decrees regulating the mode of the publication of official acts, the further organization of the postal service, the legalization of certain documents, the protection of the port of Banana, and the establishment of an export duty on certain products of the country, which are named in a schedule attached to the decree.
I also desire to call your attention to a decree published on page 32 et seq. of this number, which determines the condition on which sea-going vessels may acquire a Congolaise nationality.
It may not be irrelevant, in this dispatch, also to say that it is announced here that the Pope has employed himself in regulating the [Page 23] ecclesiastical situation of the Independent State of the Congo. It is said that, conformably to the views of the King of Belgium, Leo XIII has accorded to the Archbishop of Malines supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Congo State, and has designated him as the chief of all the future clergy of that territory.
The new African Seminary of Louvain will prepare the ecclesiastics intended to occupy the parishes to be formed in the Congo.
I have, &c.,