The Belgian officer assured M. Wahis that it was, but the latter, thinking Mr. Banks did not understand French, said: 'After all, you may have seen this; but you have no witnesses.' 'Oh,' said Mr. Banks, 'I can call the commandant, who has just told you that it is true.' M: Wahis then tried to minimize the matter, when, to his great surprise, Dr. Banks added: 'In any case I have, at his own request, furnished to the British Consul, who passed through here lately, a signed statement concerning it.' M. Wahis rose from his chair, saying: 'Oh, then, it is all over Europe!' Then for the first time he said that the responsible Commissary must be punished."

It need not be added that the punishment was the merest farce.

These successive reports, each amplifying the other, coming on the top of the murder of Mr. Stokes, and the action of the British Colonial Office in prohibiting recruiting for Congoland, had the effect of calling strong attention to the condition of that country. The charges were met partly by denial, partly by general phrases about morality, and partly by bogus reform. M. Van Eetvelde, in Brussels, and M. Jules Houdret, in London denied things which have since been proved up to the hilt. The reform took the shape of a so-called Natives' Protection Commission. Like all these reforms, it was utterly ineffectual and was only meant for European consumption. No one knew so well as the men at Brussels that no possible reform could have any effect whatever unless the system was itself abolished, for that system produced outrages as logically and certainly as frost produces ice. The sequel will show the results of the Natives' Protection Commission.

V

Further Fruits of the System

For a moment I must interrupt the narrative of the long, dismal succession of atrocities in order to explain certain new factors in the situation.

It has already been shown that the Congo State, unable to handle the whole of its vast domain, had sublet large tracts of it to monopolist companies, in absolute contradiction to Article V. of the Berlin Treaty. Up to the year 1897, these companies were registered in Belgium, and had some presence to be international in scope. The State had no open or direct control over them. This was now altered. The State drew closer the bonds which united it to these commercial undertakings. They were, for the most part, dissolved, and then reconstructed under Congo law. In most cases, in return for the monopoly, the State was given control, sometimes to the extent of appointing all managers and agents. Half the shares of the company or half the profits were usually made over to the State. Thus one must bear in mind in future that whether one talks of the A.B.I.R. Company, of the Kasai, the Katanga, the Anversoise, or any other, it is really with the State -- that is, with King Leopold -- that one has to do. He owned the companies, but paid them fifty per cent. commission for doing all the work. As their profits were such as might be expected where nothing was paid for produce and little for labour (varying from fifty to seven hundred per cent. per annum), all parties to the bargain were the gainers.

Another new factor in the situation was the completion, in 1898, of the Lower Congo Railway, which connects Matadi with Stanley Pool, and so outflanks the cataracts. The enterprise itself was beneficent and splendid.