HL Deb 01 May 1911 vol 8 cc44-54

THE EARL OF MAYO rose to ask His Majesty's Government why no Consular Reports from the Congo State have been published since the one furnished by Consul Thesiger in 1909; and to move for Papers.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, in putting this Question I should like to make a few remarks. It is well known to the the House that the treatment of the Congo under the system created by King Leopold of Belgium excited horror and disgust throughout the whole world, and the so-called Congo Free State became a by-word amongst the nations. Let me recall that the Congo was annexed by Belgium in 1908, and that the Belgian reform scheme was published in October, 1909. By the terms of the reform scheme half of the Congo was to be left, for varying periods, under the same Leopoldian règime of slavery and international illegality against which the British Government had been officially protesting since 1903. The reform scheme did not receive the Royal Assent in Belgium until March, 1910, and I ask, Why did not the Foreign Office use its influence during that interval, by publishing its Consular Reports and in other ways, to protest against the reform scheme which applied to only half of the Congo territory?

The last report we had from the Congo was the report of Consul Thesiger in January, 1909. That was a courageous and straightforward report. It narrated a tour in the Kasai district, begun in May, 1908, and lasting apparently until August, 1908. What did Consul Thesiger say in regard to that? His report disclosed a condition of things abominable in the extreme. These are his words— No method of reform or change of administration will be of any real benefit to the people of this district unless it includes the entire abolition of this company, which has so long been held up as a model of what a concessionnaire company should be. What was the result of that report in Belgium? The Belgian Colonial Minister, who had had the contents of Consul Thesiger's report quoted to him through M. Emile Vandervelde, who had met Consul Thesiger on the Congo, declared in the Chamber on December 17 and in the Senate on December 23 that— The Kasai Company did not 'levy taxes or force the natives to work,' and those who contended the contrary were 'ignorant of the true state of affairs."' The fact of Consul Thesiger's report compelled this Minister to speak on the subject, and he had to admit that forty-five of the company's agents were under arrest, eleven of the counts being for manslaughter, eleven for illegal imprisonment, and two for "blows leading to death." The Belgian Government holds fifty per cent. of the company's shares, estimated in the Treaty of Transfer at a value of £l,426,698. If the Consul's report did nothing else it led to a statement from the Belgian Minister which shows what sort of reform this is, and what it is worth. Is the reform scheme applied, to only half the territory an excuse for not publishing any further Consular Reports? But what about the reports from the un-reformed half? Surely there can be no excuse whatever why we should not have had Consular Reports from that territory.

Although no Consular Reports are available we have evidence from missionaries, and I will quote from a report by a missionary dated February 7, 1911, giving particulars of a journey in the Aruwimi district of the Upper Congo. He writes— We regret to say that rubber is still the tax paid to the State by hundreds of natives in the inland districts visited by us. Three months ago, in coming back to this station after furlough in England, one was still with sincere hopes that the reforms promised by the Belgian Government and accepted in good faith by many ardent reformers and statesmen would be put into execution immediately and thoroughly by those who have the responsibility of the administration of this country. And in justice it should be remarked that, owing chiefly to the substitution of money instead of labour as the tax along the banks of the main river generally, the condition of the natives in that region seems to have improved. But now, in penetrating the Hinterland and only a few days march from the great Congo river, imagine how keen and bitter was our disappointment at finding the old régime, so greatly denounced and discredited, still in operation. The old régime is practically this—that by forced labour these natives have to bring in rubber. The compulsory period fixed is forty hours a month; but how does it work out for the natives? In actual experience in the district visited by the missionary from whose report I have quoted, it works out for them at six months, and in some cases at eight months, of laborious compulsory toil in the year in order to bring in the necessary rubber. And if they fail to bring in the rubber there must be some penalties, and therefore you have the old system going on throughout the whole of the unreformed, part of the Congo. For two years we have had no Consular Reports telling us what is going on.

Those who are interested in the Congo have put their hands in their pockets and formed a considerable fund and, have sent out the Rev. John Harris, whose wife has accompanied him, to find out for us what is going on in the Congo. I look with extreme interest to the receipt of Mr. Harris's report. He is a man who can talk the language of the natives, and is well known to, and respected by, those who have anything to do with Congo reform. But why should it be necessary for us to send, out Mr. Harris? We have a Vice-Consul at Leopoldville, another in the Katanga, and another in the Kasai. But we do not get a word. They are as silent as the dark forests which hide the natives and the rubber. I think it is only right that we should ask that these reports should, be published. England has not recognised the annexation of the Congo by Belgium. According to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs we are awaiting reports as to what is going on. But let the public know by means of the reports of their Consuls what is going on in this territory. I admit that there has been some reform, but this letter which I have quoted from the missionary is not good reading, and it is important that we should have official reports from our Consular officers.

I am not going to take any credit for all that has been done by Congo reformers, and I hope your Lordships will not think that we have other than a humanitarian interest in the matter. There is no question of acquisition of territory or of minerals, or anything of that kind. Speaking at the Guildhall banquet on November 9, 1910, the Prime Minister said— The agitation in this country with regard to Congo reform has been subjected to much criticism based on the assumption that it has some political motive. The agitation never had any such motive. It is disinterested; it is sincere; it has no ulterior or selfish end. It is in no sense impertinent, for it has regard to a territory and a population towards which by Treaty we have undertaken solemn obligations. As we have undertaken solemn obligations by Treaty it is only right that we should know what is going on in the country in respect of which those obligations have been undertaken. I beg to put the Question which stands in my name, and to move that the Consular Reports which have been so long delayed be laid before the House.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for further Papers relating to the Congo State.—(The Earl of Mayo.)

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

My Lords, before the noble Viscount replies I should like to add a few words to what has been very clearly stated by the noble Earl who has just sat down. Eighteen months have passed since some of us, of whom I was one, took a somewhat active part in raising a protest against what we believed, and still believe, to be the unspeakable horrors that were then going on in the Congo State. I do not think it has often fallen to the lot of those who occupy the responsible position I do to receive such unqualified approval from all sorts of people as we received for the action we took in connection with that protest. Shortly after that protest—I do not say in consequence of it—a promise was given on behalf of the Belgian Government as regards certain changes that were to be brought into operation, and in England this was regarded as a sort of quieting assurance.

Those of us who took part in that protest now find ourselves in an exceedingly difficult position. If we again raise our voices and express our hesitation and doubt about what may now be happening in the limited region shrouded from our view in which reforms are said to be taking place, we are told that we are seeking to pull up the plant by the roots to see how it is growing and that time must be allowed for the reforms to bear fruit. On the other hand, time is a narcotic, and if we are silent it may be supposed that we are for the time being satisfied with regard to what may be going forward. The last official report from a Consul in the Congo Free State is nearly two years old. The fact of our having Consuls there has been advanced as an assurance that we would have the means of testing whether or not the changes hoped for were taking place. Without reports we are in a very helpless position. I agree that such sources of information as reports from travellers and missionaries may not be always judicial, and may have to be received with a certain amount of caution, although if ever there was a case in which the reports of the missionaries were justified when probed, it was in the Congo region. But we ought to have something we could rely upon in a different kind of way.

The reports which have trickled through in an unofficial way are almost uniformly to the bad. Reports about certain places on the river itself, where coinage for the purpose of barter has been substituted for the rougher methods that preceded it, show that there is a certain amount of amelioration. But missionaries who have penetrated a little further state that a few miles inland the mischief is, in some quarters where amelioration is supposed to be taking place, as bad as before. Then there are the reports from the Belgian authorities who are responsible for the administration, and if we are to receive with a certain caution reports from irresponsible travellers, it is not going too far to say that we must receive with very considerable caution the reports from those who are responsible for the administration, and are therefore judges in their own cause. If we turn from the Belgian who is responsible to the Belgian critic, we find that reformers in Belgium are profoundly dissatisfied with the information which reaches them from the Congo.

But the real source of information to which we are entitled to turn is our own Consular agents. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has told us again and again that we have those Consuls there, and may look to them for being kept in touch with what is happening, and he has told us that it will be on the strength of those Consular Reports that he will be obliged to form his opinion about what is actually taking place, and what ought to be now done, or left undone, by England, whether or not our protests require to be renewed, whether we are to express gratitude at the results, or whether the whole reform-plan has collapsed. The narcotic as regards time is showing itself to be productive of a great deal of mischief. It is suggested that, inasmuch as there are now no complaints, has not the time come for annexation. We want the facts in order to know whether or not we are to complain. Either reports from the Consuls do exist in the Foreign Office or they do not. If they do not, one asks why not? What are the Consuls about? Have the Consuls been pressed to send in reports? If, on the other hand, the reports do exist, is it really necessary that the public should be kept for two years in complete ignorance of what is happening in a region about which so much has been said?

In this House we are always ready to recognise the force of an appeal from the Foreign Office that it is not in the public interest at a given juncture that information should be given, but that cannot go on for years. One's fear is that the reports must be of such a character that to produce them would be to show the failure of the protests we have made, and a breach of the promises to which we have been urged to listen. Therefore I am grateful to the noble Earl for raising the question to-night, and I look forward with keen anxiety—and I am sure many outside will look forward with keen anxiety—to the reply which the noble Viscount will give to-night. I hope the noble Viscount will inform us whether official reports from the Consuls exist, and, if not, why not; and if they do exist, why the country is not put in possession of them, in order to know whether it is necessary to renew our protests with regard to one of the most intolerable episodes in ancient or modern history. A civilised country, owing to a series of events which I need not now recall, finds itself answerable for the well being of enormous numbers of people helplessly under its control in a region about which it is almost impossible to obtain first-hand information in the way in which we obtain it from other quarters. For these reasons I endorse with all my power the appeal of the noble Earl for further information upon a matter wherein we, too, have a very real responsibility.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN)

My Lords, I certainly do not complain for a moment either of the noble Earl for raising this question or of any of the language used either by him or by the most rev. Primate. But we have to remember that this question is at this moment in a stage in which all of us who have had, to fight uphill battles have found questions. An operation of such a kind as the complete transformation of the old system of government in the Congo State is an enormous operation. The area is enormous. I forget its dimensions.

THE EARL OF MAYO

The unreformed part is as big as the Empire of Germany.

VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN

The area is enormous, communications are exceedingly difficult, the conditions of the communities concerned, are dark and bar-barons. Therefore a transformation in the fiscal, economic and social conditions of a strange pack of communities like that cannot be the work of a few months. There always conies a time when those who have laboured hard, as the Congo Association have done—of which I am a member—to arouse the conscience of this country years ago, are not able to see the full fruitage of their hopes and efforts. But, of course, the whole set of circumstances have to be taken into consideration, and I declare that I do not think this arrangement which has come into force opening up these new areas within a period of two years leaves us wholly devoid of information as to what is going on in those open or partially opened areas. There are two or three reports, I think, in the Foreign Office. But I cannot think it is unjust to believe that it would be much better, before coming to a final judgment, to wait until we get evidence of what is going on in the larger portion of the area now opened up. There is nothing unreasonable in saying that before British opinion is again roused, if aroused it is to be, there should at least be every opportunity taken to get a thorough knowledge of the facts and, of the steps which have been already adopted.

In virtue of the Decree of March 22, 1910—of which to-day a translation has been placed in the Library of your Lordships' House—the system under which the rubber and ivory products of the country were exploited by the State—that system which produced the most hateful results is undoubtedly passing away. It involved a heavy tax in kind on the natives, and, the tax in kind, instead of through some species of coin, led to the most villainous acts and systems of oppression. Every effort was naturally made by the State officials to screw out as much as they possibly could, and an immense area of the country was so treated. In that area no private enterprise was permitted, so that the natives evidently had not the opportunity of obtaining money with which to pay their taxes, even if they had been allowed to do so. But by the Decree it was settled that the country should be opened up to trade in three sections. More than half was thrown open in July, 1910, and another section will be thrown open in July this year, while the third section will be opened in July, 1912. This will leave only a relatively very small area which is occupied by the companies whose concessions give them exclusive rights, and in which trade will still be restricted. Besides the Decree there is in the Library a map explaining to your Lordships exactly how this great area is divided. There are other Decrees passed since 1909 which are calculated to improve the system of administration and to promote general trade.

The noble Earl said there was no doubt that according to some of the missionaries the old system was still going on. According, however, to the information at the disposal of the Government, I think that is a tremendous over-statement. The noble Earl and the most rev. Primate also ask why we do not produce the latest reports we have. There are now two Consular agents travelling in the more recently opened area. We are expecting their reports, I will not say daily, but within a moderate space of time, and the moment these reports have been considered by the Foreign Secretary they will be laid before Parliament. This is the point which seems to have puzzled the most rev. Primate; but it appears to the Government to be useless to ask His Majesty's Consular agents to furnish merely general reports on the state of things in the Congo until some accurate and pretty full idea can be formed of the effect which these reforms are taking, until they have been in operation at all events for some few months. At present the two Consular officers are engaged in an extensive tour, and it is the intention of the Government immediately their reports are received to publish them together with others that have recently arrived, and I hope that then your Lordships will be able to form a clear and well-supported idea of what is actually going on in that country.

The most rev. Primate made some reference about annexation. I must remind him that the Government have systematically refused to recognise annexation under the Act until they are able to lay before Parliament evidence to show that the actual state of things in the Congo with regard to the condition of the natives and the state of trade is such as brought us at any rate within a reasonably near approach of the fulfilment of our Treaty rights. Those in the Foreign Office who carefully watch this matter and my right hon. friend the Secretary of State are convinced, however, that there has undoubtedly been an improvement in the state of affairs. I sympathise with the impatience of the noble Earl and the most rev. Primate, but I hope they will not allow that impatience to make them unjust or precipitate in forming a judgment. We are taking all the steps that can be taken to get information that can be depended upon. I observe that some remarks have been made in a rather hostile spirit to the Government on the ground of what is called the apologetic language used by His Majesty's representative in Brussels to the Belgian Government. You could not do a worse thing to promote the advance of reform in the Congo State, or to get support for the ideas of the best people in Belgium and in Great Britain than to let the Belgian Government feel that you are there as a sort of censor or as a rather over-fastidious schoolmaster. I am sure your Lordships will feel that to take steps of that kind would be the least likely of all policies to further the objects in view.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON

My Lords, I am not quite sure that the noble Viscount will feel that even his own reassuring speech in any way precludes us from being grateful to the noble Earl for having brought forward this question. I am confident that we would all endeavour to support the view contained in the noble Viscount's last sentence or two. We have not the slightest desire to do anything which would lead a friendly Government to feel that we were unduly pressing our views upon them at a time when we hope they are moving in the desired direction. On the other hand, I think the noble Viscount will see that the plea which he has made for not putting forward reports until the operation of reforms over the whole of the wide area can be ascertained and until there can be some completeness is one which must not be strained too far. The question cannot be left at the point at which it was left by the Memorandum of Sir Edward Grey now nearly two years old; and nobody can wonder that any member of Parliament, aware of all that has taken place before and who realises the language which the Foreign Secretary thought it necessary to employ to the Belgian Government nearly two years ago, should be a little surprised that in the whole of the interval we do not get any information whatever as to what has taken place. The Foreign Secretary remarked, on June 11, 1909, in reference to the question of boundaries— Tribes have in many cases shifted their quarters and emigrated to new districts; and the ravages of sickness and the results of the system of administration pursued by the authorities during the last twenty years have swept away altogether the population of some districts and greatly reduced that of others. The addition of two years to twenty years would be a serious item in this history unless we were satisfied that a better course was being pursued.

From the statement of the noble Viscount we have reason to hope that the reports which he promises us will come to hand very shortly will show a greatly improved state of things. I go so far as to say that not even our desire to co-operate with a friendly Government, not even our wish to avoid anything which could give pain, would justify us in leaving an obvious duty undertaken two years ago unless we are satisfied that during the intervening period there has been a real step towards reform. One must remember in this matter that those who are engaged on reform are not hampered as some have been who have had to carry out reforms in the East. The Congo State has produced enormous funds. A great deal of what is required to be done is merely a question of money. The removal possibly of some officials, the foregoing of some amount of taxation, the establishment of a coinage for money transaction—these are all matters which need some time and may need some expenditure of money, or rather the foregoing of some receipts, but I do not think the noble Viscount of all men will urge in this House that we can treat the matter which began, I think, in November, 1908, as in any way to be halted. This is not the acquisition of new country, or the establishment of new institutions. It is really the substitution, by a nation already in possession, of a better system than the one which has prevailed. They have ample funds and the whole official hierarchy at their back, and have, as we believe, the best wish to create in the new reign a different record from that which distinguished the old one before the State was taken over by the Government.

I still cannot help thinking that the Foreign Office were ill-advised in giving such a long halt as two years in the publication of these reports. As the most rev. Primate said, either these reports are in the Foreign Office or they ought to be. The plea that they would give only a partial view does not hold good, especially as reports from unofficial quarters give us reason to fear that the view of the noble Viscount will prove to be too sanguine. I gathered, however, from what the noble Viscount said that we may expect these reports in the course of a few weeks at the latest.

VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN

I do not think I mentioned any time. The words I used were "within a near measure of time."

VISCOUNT MIDLETON

I think the noble Viscount used the expression "almost at once." At any rate, I hope that before we part with this session we may see these reports. If after the adjournment for the Coronation they have not been presented I hope my noble friend will renew his Question, so that we may have an opportunity of considering the reports and discussing them before the year has gone too far. I venture to suggest that the Foreign Secretary should, if possible, communicate by telegraph with our Consuls and urge them to expedite their reports, on which so much expectation has been based, and which we heartily hope may go to show that a new era has been inaugurated throughout these regions.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.