CONGO FREE STATE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 2631, 5 August 1908, Page 7

CONGO FREE STATE.

TERMS OF ANNEXATION.

PAYING TAXES IN LABOUR. NATIVES TO BE FREE TO WORK AND SELL PRODUCE. (dt telecbaph—press association—corntiGHT.; (ltcc. August 4, 9.30 p.m.) London, August 4. Further developments lmvo taken place with regard to the negotiations between Belgium and the Powers as to the terms on which Belgium is to annex tho Congo Free State (whoso administration by King Leopold has revolted Europe). Owing to tho Belgian Government promising to improve the treatment of the Congo natives, especially increasing their liberty to labour and their right to dispose of the produco of their lands, tho British Government will not insist on abolition of tho system of paying taxes in labour within a specified time.

Belgium also undertakes, after annexation, to favourably entertain a proposal to arbitrate with regard to tho interpretation of the commercial conventions binding upon the Congo Free S.tate.

WANTED: MONEY CURRENCY AND FREE COMMERCE. In the past tho absence ■of money has been made a ground for exacting taxes from the natives in tho shape of forced labour, and by this means extortion and cruelty have crept in. Also, tho occupation by the State of so-called vacant lands, and tho establishment' of a monopoly of their produce, have left the natives entirely at the mercy of the officials. "Freedom of commorce and the' introduction of money," says one writer, "will alone enablo taxation to be put on a just and economic basis, and must, therefore, be promoted without delay. The first, and the most urgent, duty of the new administration should be no longer tho exploitation of tho country, but tho care of its native, races.".

In a recent debate in the Beglian Sonato the Premier, M. Schollaert, made a speech full of promise of amelioration. He said: "Already at numerous points tho natives voluntarily and freely seek in labour .the wherewithal to satisfy the needs of a condition superior to that which was theii's not long since. Money is in uso among them. It is a question of making this -state of affairs genoral, of making it the normal condition of the whole Congo. Perfected methods of cultivation have beon taught them in many places. It is a question of extending them to all points of the territory, of establishing tho natives, still partly nomad, on a soil which ; belongs to them, of which they are the masters, where they can set up a permanent home, to become tho centre of a loftier affection, and tho source of thoir attachment to the country which wo shall have taught, them to know and to love.'"