ABSTRACT
LEGENDS die hard. The legend which attributes to King Leopold of Belgium and the Congo State a philanthropic motive in African affairs is still alive among us, although not quite to the extent that it used to be. It would have died long ago but for two causes, the misstatements indulged in by two or three well-known Englishmen and the apparent failure of the British Press, as a whole, to comprehend the fons et origo mali which is raising up such terrible future complications for Europe in Central Africa. Upon occasion
one is tempted to think-and the supposition is strengthened by such articles as that which the Times recently devoted to the Congo annexation debate in the Belgian Chamber-that the curious omission to come to close quarters with the subject proceeds not so much from inability to see things as they really are, as from an unwillingness to criticise the Sovereign of the Congo State himself. Personalities are held to be bad form, especially where Royalty is concerned. If that be, indeed, the real explanation of the whitewashing of the Congo State which finds favour in many quarters, there is nothing to prevent the process from going on indefinitely. I maintain that it is utterly impossible to arrive at the truth, if the king's personal responsibility in the maladministration of the Congo State is to be perpetually shelved. Why should it be? The administrative regime of the State, as M. Cattier has truly said, is an U absolute despotism." No one who is acquainted with that reginte believes for a moment that a Van Eetvelde, a Droogmans, a Liebrechts or a Cuvelier exist for any purpose than that of carrying out the king's instructions and superintending the routine work which those instructions entail. King Leopold is sole master, and must bear the responsibility for the sequela of measures which he himself has initiated and, through his agents, caused to be applied. The king has openly and repeatedly claimed for himself this position before the world. He has posed, and continues to pose, as the regenerator of the African. He has put it on record, in a letter to his agents, that H his only programme is the work of moral and material regeneration." He has written of the H results achieved" by the Congo State as being due It to the concentration of all my efforts in one field of action." He has, throughout, loudly insisted upon the purity and unselfishness of his intentions. Adverse comment has been dismissed by him with a loftiness of tone, a simulated consciousness of high purpose, a dignified picturesqueness of expression from which it is impossible to withhold a meed of admiration, as in the case of a play repugnant to one's sentiments but yet so excellently rendered that objection to
the theme cannot blind one to the art of the performers. II My aim throughout life has been to find the truth and make the truth known to others. I have often been misunderstood and misrepresented, but we must not be discouraged; let us ever go forward in the path of duty, striving to let the light shine forth." It cannot be a subject of complaint on the part of his Majesty or his Majesty's friends if, under these circumstances, we take the Sovereign of the Congo State at his word; if we recognise that in the management of the affairs of the Congo State he has adopted to the uttermost the proud assertion of Louis XIV. : U L'Etat : c'est moi" ,. if, making due note that his declared policy has been the regeneration of the African Negro-a policy in the execution of which he shuns not publicity but only desires light and truth-we judge his acts and the consequences of those acts from the standpoint he himself has laid down.
