Minister Wilson to the Secretary of State.

No. 319.]

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith the following correspondence exchanged between this legation and the Kongo foreign office relative to the right of American Christian missionaries to purchase or lease lands in the Kongo State territories for missionary or school sites:

1.
Copy of my note of March 16, sent after the receipt of the department’s cablegram of March 12.
2.
Copy of reply thereto, dated March 18.
3.
Translation of No. 2.
4.
Copy of my reply to No. 2.

I also transmit (inclosure 5) a copy of the simultaneous note addressed to the Kongo foreign office by the British minister upon the same date with my inclosure No. 1, and a copy of the reply thereto (inclosure No. 6).

[Page 557]

The British minister has not yet made his reply to Mr. de Cuvelier’s note of March 28, but if I am furnished a copy later it will be transmitted to the department.

The department will note that the language of the correspondence exchanged between this legation and the Kongo foreign office is decidedly vigorous and emphatic, but I believed it necessary to let it be known that we felt a just indignation over the disposition of the Kongo government to evade or postpone the performance of its treaty obligations upon pleas of a frivolous character, and to say in a direct and forcible manner that we can not tolerate the suspension or evasion of the execution of treaty stipulations upon pretexts invented by bureaucratic jurists.

I have, etc.,

Henry Lane Wilson.
[Inclosure 1.]

Minister Wilson to the Chevalier de Cuvelier, Secretary General of the Kongo, March 16, 1908.

Mr. Secretary General: I duly transmitted to Washington your esteemed note of February 7, and am just in receipt of an expression of my Government’s views thereon.

My Government was not aware, until its attention was called by the correspondence between your department and this legation, that the right of any class of American Christian missionaries to purchase lands for missionary sites and schools in the Belgian Kongo had ever been questioned, denied, or limited, and it regrets that such clear and definite rights, secured by solemn treaties, must be made the subject of diplomatic correspondence.

The rights of American Christian missionaries are fully set forth and described in the language of articles 2 and 4 of our treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation of 1891, and the guaranties therein contained can not be abrogated, suspended, or delayed.

While I am sensible that our rights, under the existing treaties, will be fully recognized by Belgium, and while I appreciate in some measure the difficulties of affording a satisfactory solution at this period of transition, when the Kongo government is possibly on the eve of being transferred to another power, I must nevertheless beg you to be good enough to give me the formal assurance that in the event the annexation bill now pending before Parliament shall fail of adoption during the present session the consideration and settlement of this question will not be further postponed.

I will be greatly pleased, Mr. Secretary General, to have a reply to this note at as early a date as convenient.

I avail myself, etc.,

Henry Lane Wilson.
[Inclosure 2.—Translation.]

Chevalier de Cuvelier to Minister Wilson.

Mr. Minister: By your letter of March 16, replying to my letter of February 7, your excellency has kindly requested to be clearly informed relative to the intentions of the Government of the Kongo in the matter of the sale of lands belonging to the State, in the event that the treaty of annexation at present pending before the Belgian Parliament should not be adopted during the present session.

I have the honor to advise your excellency that if events should occur as you anticipate the Government of the Independent State of the Kongo would consider that the circumstances to which I referred in my letter of February 7 would be modified, and it would naturally have to examine the measures to be taken that the decrees of June 3, 1906, providing for the sale or lease of lands belonging to the State should be executed without delay.

Your excellency will permit me to add that the diplomatic correspondence which I had the honor to exchange with the legation of the United States has [Page 558] never put in question, nor contested or limited, the rights of American citizens in the Independent State of the Kongo, as stipulated by the treaty of January 24, 1891, and particularly by articles 2 and 4, and that the Government of the Kongo State does not intend to evade any of its international obligations, either in their tenor or bearing.

I avail, etc.,

Chr. de Cuvelier.
[Inclosure 3.]

Minister Wilson to the Secretary General of the Independent State of the Kongo, March 31, 1908.

Mr. Secretary General: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your esteemed letter of March 28, No. 784–2068, and note with pleasure the declaration contained therein that in the event of the fail are of the Kongo annexation bill now pending before Parliament to receive legislative approval, the Government of the Independent State of the Kongo will immediately address itself to the execution of the decrees providing for the sale or lease of lands belonging to the State.

I must add, however, Mr. Secretary General, that the interpretation placed by you upon the correspondence of this legation with the Independent State of the Kongo seems to me at variance with the facts. In no correspondence which I have had the honor to exchange with you has it been either stated or intimated that the Kongo foreign office had placed in question treaty rights of American citizens guaranteed by the convention of 1891.

I may, however, be permitted to call your attention to the fact that the convention of 1891 has now been in force for more than 16 years, and yet there is undisputed evidence that the agents of the Kongo Government have refused—and still continue to refuse—to sell or lease lands to American missionaries for mission or school sites.

As the State is practically the exclusive proprietor of Kongo lands, the refusal of its agents to sell or lease the same to a class of persons specifically mentioned in articles 2 and 4 of the convention constitutes in itself a virtual abrogation of the stipulations therein contained.

My Government is not seeking special privileges at the hands of the Kongo Government. It is simply asking for the performance of treaty obligations without reservations or delays.

I avail myself, etc.,

Henry Lane Wilson.
[Inclosure 4.]

The British Minister to the Independent State of the Kongo.

Monsieur le Chevalier: I duly transmitted to His Majesty’s secretary of state for foreign affairs the note which you did me the honor to address to me on the 21st ultimo respecting sites for British Christian missions in the Independent Kongo State, and I reported to him the verbal exchange of views which had taken place between us on this question.

Sir Edward Grey has approved of the stress laid by me on the rights to the acquisition of landed property in the Kongo State guaranteed by it to British subjects under article 2 of the convention of 1884 between Great Britain and the International Association of the Kongo; but in view of the considerations set forth by you he has merely instructed me to require from the Kongo Government a formal assurance that if the annexation bill now before the Belgian Parliament is not passed before the close of its session in May next that Government will without further delay sell to the British missionary societies concerned sites in or near the localities which they have indicated.

I should be grateful, Monsieur le Chevalier, for a reply at your earliest convenience to this note, to which I have the honor to annex a translation, and I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you the assurance of my high consideration.

A. H. Hardinge.
[Page 559]
[Inclosure 5.—Translation.]

Independent State of the Kongo to the British Minister.

Mr. Minister: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the letter which your excellency has been good enough to address me relative to the intentions of the Government of the Independent State of the Kongo in the matter of the sale or lease of domain lands in the event that the annexation bill, at present pending before the Belgian Parliament, should’ not be adopted before the close of its session in the month of May next.

During our former interviews, when your excellency referred to the postponement of annexation, I answered spontaneously that, in case the event should occur in that way, the Kongo Government, finding the present situation altered, would naturally have to examine the measures to be taken that the decrees of June 3, 1906, providing for the sale or lease of domain lands, should be executed without new delay.

I ought, Mr. Minister, to make reserves upon the interpretation given in your letter to the treaty of 1884 between Great Britain and the Kongo International Association, that article 2, in stipulating for British subjects “the right of residence and establishment” in the territories of the association, as also the right to buy and lease lands, edifices, mines, and forests, does not impose upon the State the obligation of selling to private persons whatsoever lands they may find it convenient to select.

I have, etc.,

Chev. de Cuvelier.

[For further British-Belgian correspondence on this subject, see “Africa,” No. 2, 1908, ed. 4079.]