Congo Atrocities

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 37, 12 September 1907, Page 10

Congo Atrocities

A reader sends us for comment a story of man's inhumanity to man. which (it is in effect alleged) has made countless thousands mourn in the Congo Free State. The tale of woe—a hearsay one, by the way—appeared a week or sc- ago in the columns of a proirdnent New Zealand daily paper. It was a seer with hopeful vision who sang :—: — ' An angel with a trumpet said : " Forever more, forever, more, The reign of violence is o'er ".' This kind of millennium is a far-off hope. ' The hinterlands of our social life —even where modern law exercises its tremendous power—will probably be marked !by thousands of recorded or unrecorded acts of cruelty and injustice until_the ' angel with a trumpet ' sounds the crack o' doom. k And as in the hinterlands of our social life, so, too, in the far outskirts where the socalled ' Inferior races ' are being passed ' sub jugo '— coaxed or driven, allured or clubibed, into the externals of western civilisation. For several years past we have been quietly gathering evidence, both pro and con, as to the methods of 4 uplifting ' pursued towards the dark-skinned tribes that inhabit the Belgian Congo. The following are the impressions which are left ,upon our mind by a perusal of the nmss of information in our possession, and toy a consideration of the character and standing of the various wilnesses :—: — 1. There have been, no dou<bt, many instances of grave injustice, and even of more or less sporadic cruelty, practised towards the native races in years gone by in the Congo Free State: 2. At the present time,' and for some time past, the administration of the Belgian Congo, in regard to the native population, seems to be on the whole relatively humane' and just, and compares reasonably well with the treatment accorded by the, most enlightened nations towards the uncivilised aboriginal races wi.thin ' their borders. N ' , 3. The stories of both past and present cruelties circulated by the Congo Keform Association and their friends and echoes are grossly exaggerated and misleading. Long past acts of oppression and cruelty appear to be systematically^ made use of as impeachments of the -gentler ' administration of "the present—' and the same wilh intent to deceive \ It is rather difficult to 5i

resist the conviction that the motive back of much of this agitation is not so much philanthropy* or sentiment for. our negro. ' man and brother \, "as a- desire to induce Great Britain to seize and • exploit the vas^i resources of the Congo region. This was the conviction forced upon" many investigators upon the spot. Among these were Mr. -Frederick Stair, Professor of Anthropology in the. University of Chicago, -after lie had spent a year of inquiry into conditions in the Congo, and Mr. James Gustavus Whiteley, American Consul-General to the Free State, whose views on the subject will be found elsewhere in this issue. We may add that, at' a . recent meeting in Liverpool, the seizure of the Congo by Great Britain was, in fact, urged or suggested by one of the speakers. . Even our young readers can re r member the false stories of Boer ' atrocities ', and the sham cry of ' the women and children ', when 'Jameson and his filibusterers were meditating the seizure, for Great Britain,' of -the rich mining country of the Rand. History sometimes repeats itself. . - # . 4. The ' Congo atrocities ' that seem to* rest on - a satisfactory basis as to evidence, are little worse .than the cruelties practised in this twentieth century on the - blacks of Western Australia and the Northern Territory ; they are not fco be compared with the admitted facts of the .terrible treatment meted out to the 'wild' aborigines of.. Queensland ; and the worst of them fall •short of the sickening horrors of burning to death, skinning alive, etc., practised by white savages upon colored men in the Black Beit -of America. - By aIL means let injustice and cruelty be hit, and hit ■ hard, wherever they show their foul heads. But ft* is well to cleanse one's own household of atrocities before casting a stone at strangers. That is, briefly stated, the penn'orth of our thought about the Congo atrocities. Our readers are free to take it for what they think it is worth.