m great sums of money, politically and constitutionally the
two governments are as independent of each other as France and
Spain.

And so, in 1885, Leopold, by the grace of fourteen governments, was
appointed their steward over a great estate in which each of the
governments still holds an equal right; a trustee and keeper over
twenty millions of "black brothers" whose "moral and material
welfare" each government had promised to protect.

There is only one thing more remarkable than the fact that Leopold
was able to turn this public market into a private park, and that
is, that he has been permitted to do so. It is true he is a man of
wonderful ability. For his own ends he is a magnificent organizer.
But in the fourteen governments that created him there have been,
and to-day there are, men, if less unscrupulous, of quite as great
ability; statesmen, jealous and quick to guard the rights of the
people they represent, people who since the twelfth century have
been traders, who since 1808 have declared slavery abolished.

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 s