And yet, for twenty-five years these statesmen have watched Leopold
disobey every provision in the act of the conference. Were they to
visit the Congo, they could see for themselves the jungle creeping
in and burying their trading posts, their great factories turned
into barracks. They know that the blacks they mutually agreed to
protect have been reduced to slavery worse than that they suffered
from the Arabs, that hundreds of thousands of them have fled from
the Congo, and that those that remain have been mutilated, maimed,
or, what was more merciful, murdered. And yet the fourteen
governments, including the United States, have done nothing.
Some tell you they do not interfere because they are jealous one of
the other; others say that it is because they believe the Congo will
soon be taken over by Belgium, and with Belgium in control, they
argue, they would be dealing with a responsible government, instead
of with a pirate. But so long as Leopold is King of Belgium one
doubts if Belgians in the Congo would rise above the level of their
King. The English, when asked why they do not assert their rights,
granted not only to them, but to thirteen other governments, reply
that if they did they would be accused of "ulterior motives." What
ulterior motives? If you pursue a pickpocket and recover your watch
from him, are your motives in doing so open to suspicion?
Personally, although this is looking some way ahead, I would like to
see the English take over and administrate the Congo.
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