CONGO MISGOVERNMENT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 307, 31 December 1907, Page 6

CONGO MISGOVERNMENT.

The Times of last Saturday publishes a document which Mr E. D. Morel, on behalf of the Congo Eeform Association, has sent.to Sir Edward Grey. It adds one more to the many proofs of cruel misgovernment in the Congo. The locument contains the narative of Mr Cassie Murdock, a Baptist missionary, who walked four hundred and hfty miles through the little-known Crown Domain,' which is about ten times the size of Belgium and is the private property of King Leopold. After M. Scrivener's report four years ago, it was announced that reforms would be introduced in the Crown Domain; but Mr Murdoch declares that if these reforms exist in theory, they are quite ineffective. "Atrocities," indeed, have almost ceased, but the cruel and grinding system of exacting the Rubber-tax remains as infamous as ever. Everywhere Mr Murdoch found signs of depopulation. Districts once well populated have become empty. Rubber has disappeared from the regions visited by Mr Murdoch, and the natives have to make dangerous walks, taking twenty to twenty-five days each month, through the forest to search for it. If the quantity is insufficient or inferior in quality, the official who receives the "tax" counts "arrears" against the native. , The pay for what is practically a month's work is one fathom of cloth, which is often stolen by the "capita" or corporal. Of course, this is slavery of an inhuman kind. Even slaves used to be fed and clothed. If the Belgian Government do not alter the present form of the Annexation Bill, which preserves the King's rights, the conscience of Britons will not be able any longer to bear the responsibility which the Berlin Act imposes on them.