Evening star., 1932-01-17
Colonies for War Debts?
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have 35 square miles apiece. What is
wanted is not the opportunity to trade
| but the opportunity to produce. The
, rockbound valleys of Labrador un-
doubtedly contain nickel. gold and cop
| per-the same formations that created
! Cobalt, Copperclift and FlinFlon.
There are vast beds OF iron In the
, far north and in the interior and the
! valleys of the south carry forests of
! BIRCH popular and spruce. Enormous
| water power runs to waste. The Ham
ilton River. which drains the interior
! country into Hamilton Inlet, sends a
roaring flood OF water down a fall of 100
| feet within distance or u miles. Part
of this descent is at the Grand Falls,
i sheer plunge of 315 feet. Measured in
| height and volume, 1t exceeds Niagara
or any other falls in North America. The
climate is rude but not 1nimical to hu-
man life. There are two seasons, Win
| ter from october l to June Is, and
| Summer for three and one-half months.
Prospects Exceed Selling Price.
Ownership of such a country car
ries with it, for the government S
J finance, the fees and taxes of concession
companies and the appropriation and
| transmission of power A hundred mil
| lion dollars begins to look insignificant
| beside the resources-or beside the
chances of such country.
| Now turn to the Congo, where the
chances" are certainties. The basin
OF the Congo IS vast territory of
100000 square miles lying in the heart
of equatorial Africa. 1t contains, In
equality, perhaps, with Brazil, the most
exuberantly fertile territory In the
world. The rich soil steaming under
the torrid sun has brought forth the
great central forest. Here gigantic trees
and tangled creepers forbid human
approach. Into these primevaI for
| ests,'' wrote David Livingstone, "the
sun, though vertical, cannot penetrate
except by sending down at midday thin
pencils of rays into the gloom
In the upper Belgian Congo one such
forest on the AruWimi covers IS 900
! square miles, into most Of which the
sun never penetrates. One may imagine
the inconceivable wealth Of such soil
II ever cleared and utilized. The sur
rounding parts Of the great basins are
uplands, all fertile and all of great
agricultural value. For tropical prod
ucts and, above all, for rubber, the
| Congo Is unsurpassed. There is great
| mineral wealth still scarcely begun to
be developed; enormous deposits of cop
per in Kantanga, tin west of Lake Tan
ganyika and gold in the northeast. But
above all the Congo Valley means
| rubber.
Congo Promises Greater Value.
In extent the Congo basin is is times
the size of the transferred territory
OF Labrador. At the same rate of pay
III would ho north D,,t
| there is no comparison in economic
value. If Labrador is worth S100 ,0O0,-
| 000 then owning the Congo is easily
worth all the outstanding war debts due
to the United StateS-that and a lot
more.
At present Belgium (since 1909 owns
two-thirds of the Congo Basin, under
the name Of the Colony Of the Belgian
Congo. In it is one Belgian to every so
| square miles, and even he wants to go
home. The French Congo" on the
| north side of the mouth of the river,
contains Gin the Congo Basin) more
than 100000 square miles. The rest of
| the Congo area is British-the rest of
any thing generally Is.
The ownerships came as the result of
the iniquitous scramble for Africa"
which contained within itself the seeds
shed in the rubber forests of the Congo
were avenged on the battlefields of
Belgium. The Belgian Congo owes
nothing-less than nothing-to the Bel
gians. The river was discovered, at its
mouth, by Portuguese; explored, from
| below, by the British Navy and from
overland by Livingstone and Henry M
| Stanley.
While the great nations were stalking
out Africa, Leopold King Of the sBel-
gians, created in 1875 the international
Association for the Exploration and
Civilization of Africa" Each jealous OF
the claims of the others, the European
powers presently agreed to let this area
under the benign tutelage of the noble
Leopold, become an internationally
open and neutraliZed state under the
name of the Congo Free State. The
aims and objects of the powers in Africa
we're never better summarized than IN
pre-war description of the opening o.
the Tanganyika district which tells III
that "the first steamer was placed or
the lake in 1884 under the name o.
! Glad Tidings of the Gospel, followed
shortly after by more mooern poa
with a quick firing gun"
Atrocities In Congo Recalled.
King Leopold had in his mind much
more than geography. The persona
domain" which he proposed to drag ou
of the Congo business included 1l2,O0'
SQUARE miles. Even when a horrifiee
world tried to choke some of it out o
him, what he couldn't carry to the
grave still stands in the royal villas al
Ostend and on the Riviera and roya
annuities paid for with the blood OF the
Congo natives.