This is
the law. Other men rule over territories more vast even than the
Congo. The King of England rules an empire upon which the sun never
sets. But he makes no claim to own it. Against the wishes of even
the humblest crofter, the King would not, because he knows he could
not, enter his cottage. Nor can we imagine even Kaiser William going
into the palm-leaf hut of a charcoal-burner in German East Africa
and saying: "This is my palm-leaf hut. This is my charcoal. You must
not sell it to the English, or the French, or the American. If they
buy from you they are 'receivers of stolen goods.' To feed my
soldiers you must drag my river for my fish. For me, in my swamp and
in my jungle, you must toil twenty-four days of each month to
gather my rubber. You must not hunt the elephants, for they are my
elephants. Those tusks that fifty years ago your grandfather, with
his naked spear, cut from an elephant, and which you have tried to
hide from me under the floor of this hut, are my ivory. Because that
elephant, running wild through the jungle fifty years ago, belonged
to me. And you yourself are mine, your time is mine, your labor is
mine, your wife, your children, all are mine. They belong to me."
[Illustration: "Tenants" of Leopold, Who Claims that the Congo
Belongs to Him, and that These Native People Are There Only as His
Tenants.]
This, then, is the "open door" as I find it to-day in the Congo.
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