STARTLING REPORT. LATE KING LEOPOLD'S PLANS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 20, 25 January 1911, Page 7

STARTLING REPORT. LATE KING LEOPOLD'S PLANS.

' AGREEMENT WITH GERMANY. FOR AN INVASION -OF FRANCE., By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received' January 25, 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, 24th January. The Pall Mall Gazette publishes a diplomatic correspondent's statement that the late King Leopold, of Belgium, exasperated and alarmed at the humanitarian agitation concerning his administration of the Congo Free State, ap--pealed for Germany's protection, and agreed 'to an invasion of France through Belgium. This plan, after Leopold's death, fell into the hands of persons* --who communicated it to France. The correspondent declares that experienced chiefs in the diplomatic service of the Continent believe that the rumour ia true. THE CONGO ADMINISTRATION. The Congo Free State was constitutes and defined by an Act of the International Congo Conference of Berlin, in 1885, and entered into treaties with all the Great Powers, by which its status as a sovereign Power under King Leopold was recognised, and its boundaries were settled. It was declared perpetually neutral, and freedom of trade was provided for, 'and rules were laid down for the protection of the natives and suppression of the slave trade. Maladministration of the State under the personal rule of the King gave rise to complaints from the Powers, which threatened to intervene. Many indignation meetings were held in Britain especially. In 1908 a treaty of session, vesting Leopold's rights in the Belgian Government, was adopted by the Belgian Parliament, and the administration of the territory passed into the hands of the national Government. The story told by the correspondent is in full accord withthe character of the late King, whose high-handed and unscrupulous methods brought him into constant conflict with his family, his people, and his neighbours.