fined."
This, doubtless, is the chief source of the quarrels between the new
State and its _proteges_, also of the depression of spirits which Mr.
Casement found so prevalent. The best French authorities on colonial
development now admit that it is madness to interfere with the native
land tenures in tropical Africa.

The method used in the enlisting of men for public works and for the
army has also caused many troubles. This question is admittedly one of
great difficulty. Hard work must be done, and, in the tropics, the white
man can only direct it. Besides, where life is fairly easy, men will not
readily come forward to labour. Either the inducement offered must be
adequate, or some form of compulsory enlistment must be adopted. The
Belgian officials, in the plentiful lack of funds that has always
clogged their State, have tried compulsion, generally through the native
chiefs. These are induced, by the offer of cotton cloth or
bright-coloured handkerchiefs, to supply men from the tribe. If the
labourers are not forthcoming, the chief is punished, his village being
sometimes burned. By means, then, of gaudy handkerchiefs, or firebrands,
the labourers are obtained. They figure as "apprentices," under the law
of November 8, 1888, which accorded "special protection to the blacks."

[Footnote 472: The number of whites in Congoland is about 1700, of whom
1060 are Belgians; the blacks number about 29,000,000, according to
Stanley; the Belgian Governor-General, Wahis, thinks this below the
truth. See Wauters, _L'Etat independant du Congo,_ pp. 261, 432.]

The British Consul, Mr. Casement, in his report on the administration of
the Congo, stated that the majority of the government workmen at
Leopoldville were under some form of compulsion, but were, on the whole,
well cared for[473].

[Footnote 473: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1904), p. 27.]

According to a German resident in Congoland, the lot of the apprentices
differs little from that of slaves. Their position, as contrasted with
that of their former relation to the chief, is humorously defined by the
term _liberes_[474] The hardships of the labourers on the State railways
were such that the British Government refused to allow them to be
recruited from Sierra Leone or other British possessions.

[Footnote 474: A. Boshart, _Zehn Jahre Afrikanischen Lebens_ (1898),
quoted by Fox Bourne, _op. cit._ p. 77. For further details see the
article by Mr. Glave, once an officia