And so I might go on, reciting incident after incident of these cruelties which have come under my own observation or have occurred so near to my station that there can be no doubt of their having been committed. If such things as I have narrated have taken place in the very limited region with which I am personally acquainted, which up until the past year has been reserved as a free-trade zone, one can scarcely imagine the awful barbarities that have been practiced up the great Congo River and in those large areas of the State which have been exploited by the State or the monopolist companies of which I shall speak later. This forced labor and military system began as a result of a special decree of Leopold issued soon after the adjournment of the Brussels Conference, about eleven years ago. A fresh impetus has thus within the past few years been given to the oppressions which had already grown heavy as a result of the decrees issued in the early '90's. As a result of this forced labor system, the rubber and the ivory have been pouring into the port of Antwerp, and the blood of thousands of innocent men and women in Africa has been freely shed to satisfy the greed of the man who poses as their benefactor.
Every possible means is used to keep the world from knowing the truth about the situation.
The King is known to be so absolute in his power that State officials, traders, and even most missionaries, are cowed into abject silence, and some of the latter have even gone so far as to openly lend their voices in the support of the iniquitous institution. Only last year, I appealed to the director of one of the large monopolist companies in my district to join with me in an appeal to the State government to stop the cruelties then going on in our region. His reply was that he had explicit instructions not to interfere in the least way with anything the State might do. The King has also blinded the world by the appointment, some years ago, of a commission composed of missionaries, Protestant and Catholic, whose duty it was to protect the natives and report any cases of injustice. Several times I have brought instances to their attention, and they have taken refuge behind the fact that the State has forced labor and military laws just as they have on the Continent, and therefore nothing can be done about it, and that if the villages do not furnish the tale of tribute and men, punitive expeditions are necessary.