Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-04-04
PUTS OFF FREE
TRADE IN CONGO
BEL GIAp GOVERNMENT FACES
POLITICAL CRISIS
IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLY WITH
DEMANDS OF ENGLAND
To Please Great Britain and America
King Leopold Must Break
Promises Made to His
Subjects

ANTWERP, April 3.-The Belgian
governments reply to the British note
OF November 4 in regard to the Congo
has been delivered. 1t consists, above
all, of demand for more time. Stress
lis laid on the fact that Belgium only
annexed the Congo in August and be-
came technically responsible for 1t in
October last. 1t is urged that the
Congo is a vast territory and that II
is impossible to substitute new sys-
tenn for the existing one without long
and careful study.
Stress is also laid on the fact that
the colonial minister is going out
shortly to investigate conditions for
himself, and that as further evidence
of good intentions the heir apparent to
the Belgian throne will cross the whole
territory from the south, via the cape
Town-K atanga railway. It is also
pointed out that the rubber tax in the
territories formerly held by the AnVer-
soise and Abr companies has been
abolished as an earnest of reform.
In well-informed Belgian circles 1t is
recognized that no amount of plausible
professions-the Belgian government
reiterates in its reply its desire for the
eventual introduction of coinage, free
dom of labor and freedom of trade-wiu
alter the real facts. Those facts are
that 1t is Enthusiastically impossible
for the Belgian government, without
any delay at all, to throw open the ter
ritory to freedom of trade ana TO re-
place the present unlimited demand on
the natives for labor in gathering rub
Der by an annual poll or head tax or
moderate proportions. To contend other
wise is to play with the subject. AS
M. Vandervelde recently declared in
the Belgian chamber, mo complicated
measures of reform are needed to can
Gel LEGISLATION which is indefenSible.
The essential alterations in policy re-
uuired offer no more difficulty than
was experienced by the colonial min
lister in renewing last month the forced
labor regulations for public works. 1t
is merely a matter for administrative
decision. But this decision will not be
taken by the present Belgian govern
ment and NJ Georges Lorand, the
twell-known deputy, is perfectly right
when he says that British public opin-
ion is deluding itself if 1t thinks other
wise.
The introduction of freedom of COM
merce means two things. 1t means an
ayowed censure of the regime, which
hiss prevailed for the last fifteen years,
and, therefore, an implied censure upon
the king, and this the king, whose in
fluence with the present Belgian gov
eminent is supreme, will not consent to.
And it means that the revenue derived
from the present system of rubber
getting, derived from slave labor, must
be replaced in great part by grants-ln-
aid. And for the present government
to ask the chamber for grants-in-aid,
after solemnly assuring the chamber
during the annexation debate that an
nexation would not involve the Belgian
taxpayer in expenditure, would be
political suicide.
Not the most ingenious of diplomat
lists can get over what is recognized
everywhere as the alpha and omega
of the whole problem. Freedom of
trade, freedom for the native to deal
commercially with the produce of his
country, is the only panacea for the ills
of the Congo, for its Introduction spells
the automatic overthrow of the system
which obtains it's revenue not from GUS
toms due on trade, but from the forced
collection of the natural products of
the country as tribute to the governing
authorities. And freedom of trade
means loss of revenue; means that the
Belgian taxpayer, like the taxpayers
of other countries who indulge in the
luxury of tropical dependencies, must
be prepared to foot the bill for num-
Der of years to come. M. Vandervelde
alone is prepared to pay the bill. But
his Socialist followers are not. The
Liberals are not and the present gov
eminent and its supporters are not.
It is not a pleasant outlook for the
friends of the natives, and the latter's
only salvation lies in the British and
American governments insisting that
the introduction of freedom of trade
and the abolition of forced labor shall
not be postponed to the Greek kalends,
but must take place now-in short,
that the native races of the Congo
shall not be sacrificed to the exigencies
of Belgian party politics, as for fifteen
years they have been sacrificed to the
criminality of King Leopold and his
dnanciers.