The Belgian Legation to the Department of State.
Washington, May 7, 1908.
In the memorandum handed on April 7 last to the minister for foreign affairs by His Excellency Mr. Henry Lane Wilson,1 the Government of the United States was pleased to express its conviction that Belgium’s action in taking over the Kongo is one of noble disinterestedness. The King’s Government is particularly sensible of this opinion and is glad to note that the Cabinet of Washington looks with satisfaction to the forthcoming annexation of the Kongo by Belgium.
The Government of the United States holds that, as a signatory to the general act of the Brussels conference, it is bound to express its views concerning the existing condition of things in the Kongo, which, although it has been overdrawn, does not meet the expectations of the powers. It points, in this connection, to a series of reforms having for their object the exemption of the natives from excessive taxation and forced labor, the possibility of their owning such area of land as they may need, the granting to foreigners of the right to secure tracts of land for the development of their commercial undertakings, and, lastly, the establishment of an independent judiciary.
As regards the first three points indicated by the Government of the United States, the King’s Government has already had occasion to make its views public. Through the chief of the cabinet and the [Page 573] minister for foreign affairs, addressing the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives, it has announced the measures it proposes to take in favor of the natives. Faithfully voicing the sentiments of the nation, which is deeply imbued with the sense of the civilizing and humane role it has to fill in the Kongo, it said that until the use of currency, which the natives are beginning to know, can be made more general among them, the State would see that the taxes be moderate and manual labor equitably recompensed; that it would endeavor to introduce improved methods of cultivation throughout the territory, to settle the negroes, who are still in part nomadic, on lands owned by them and on which they can establish a permanent home, and to enlarge their holdings by very broad and liberal land grants. He added that their commercial aptitudes would be developed and that they would be furnished with the means of bringing them into play through manifold relations with those who bring them the blessings of civilization.
As regards the taxation of the natives, the King’s Government feels that its rate must be proportioned to the resources of the taxpayers, so as to remain moderate. It also believes that the tax to be demanded in labor of the native unable to pay in money is but a temporary and provisional measure destined to gradual extinction pari passu with the introduction of money, which the King’s Government is bent upon favoring to the utmost. This comes to saying that forced labor (if tax payment in that form is meant thereby) is intended to last in the Kongo only within the same bounds and under the same conditions of necessity as it exists in foreign colonies.
In any event the principle of personal liberty laid down in the colonial bill excludes any other form of coercion. The natives can not be compelled, directly or indirectly, with or without compensation, to do work for the concessionary societies, or for any other private concern; labor can only be voluntary and for wages freely agreed upon.
The fourth point indicated by the American memorandum, viz, the acquisition by foreign merchants and settlers of vacant tracts of land to enable them to carry on commercial undertakings, comes within the question of freedom of commerce. The Government of the United States, in its memorandum, brings to mind the assurances it had already received concerning the earnest purpose of the King’s Government to act in accordance with the stipulations of the acts of Berlin and Brussels. Belgium ever faithfully kept the international engagements it entered into. As prescribed by the act of Berlin, it will bring the broadest economical régime into operation in its future colony; it will foster in the most liberal measure the expansion of trade and industry without discriminating between nationals and foreigners. It will, as declared to the Chamber of Representatives by the head of the cabinet, see that private persons, whatever their nationality, may acquire such lands as they may need in the conduct of their business or profession.
As to the fifth point contemplated in the memorandum, the establishment of an independent judiciary, it has specially engaged the attention of the King’s Government while the colonial bill now before the Belgian chambers was in preparation. The independence and stability of judicial offices are formally guaranteed therein. Furthermore, the State of the Kongo even now has a corps of magistrates [Page 574] much larger in proportion to its territory than any of the other colonies in the conventional basin, and it does not appear that they may be charged with any professional delinquency.
Finally, the wish expressed by the Government of the United States, as its own account, that it might see the right accorded to American missionaries to secure tracts of land to be used for their missionary sites and schools, will find gratification in the Belgian Government’s desire to please a friendly power, as well as in its observance of the advantages the Independent State has granted by treaty to the citizens of the United States.
The King’s Government gives evidence of its being true to the traditional friendship which binds Belgium and the United States by laying before the American Government, before annexing the Kongo, this statement of its purposes, to the sincerity of which the memorandum paid a merited homage.