Minister Wilson to
the Secretary of State.
American Legation,
Brussels, April 1,
1908.
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.,
[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.,
[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.,
[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.,
[Inclosure 4.]
The British Minister
to the Independent State of the
Kongo.
Brussels, March 16,
1908.
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.
[Page 559]
[Inclosure
5.—Translation.]
Independent State of the
Kongo to the British
Minister.
Brussels, March 28,
1908.
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.,
[For further British-Belgian correspondence on this subject, see
“Africa,” No. 2, 1908, ed. 4079.]
