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“The subject which brings us together to-day is one that deserves in the
highest degree to engage the attention of the friends of humanity. To open to
civilisation the only part of the globe where it has not yet penetrated, to
pierce the darkness enshrouding entire populations, that is, if I may venture
to say so, a crusade worthy of this century of progress; and I am happy to
discover how much public sentiment is in favour of its accomplishment.
The current is with us.
“Gentlemen, among those who have most closely studied Africa, a good
many have been led to think that there would be advantage to the common
object they pursue if they could be brought together for the purpose of
conference with the object of regulating the march, combining the efforts,
deriving some profit from all circumstances, and from all resources, and
finally, in order to avoid doing the same work twice over.
“It has appeared to me that Belgium, a central and a neutral state, would
be a spot well chosen for such a reunion, and it is this view which has
emboldened me to call you all here, to my home, for the little Conference
that I have the great satisfaction of opening to-day. Is it necessary for me to
say to you that in inviting you I have not been guided by egotistic views?
No, gentlemen; if Belgium is small, she is happy and satisfied with her lot. I
have no other ambition but to serve her well. But I will not go so far as to
declare that I should be insensible to the honour which would result for my
country if an important forward movement in a question which will mark
our epoch should be dated from Brussels. I should be happy that Brussels
should become in some way the headquarters of this civilising movement.
“I have, then, allowed myself to believe that it would be convenient to
you to come together to discuss and to specify, with the authority belonging
to you, the means to be employed in order to plant definitely the standard of
civilisation on the soil of Central Africa, to agree as to what should be done
to interest the public in your noble enterprise, and to induce it to support
you with its money. For, gentlemen, in works of this kind it is the
concurrence of the greater number that makes success; it is the sympathy of
the masses which it is necessary to solicit, and to know how to obtain.
“With what resources should we not, in fact, be endowed if every one for
whom a franc is little or nothing consented to throw it into the coffers
destined for the suppression of the slave trade in the interior of Africa!
“Great progress has been already accomplished; the unknown has been
attacked from many sides; and if those here present, who have enriched
science with such important discoveries, would describe for us the principal
points, their exposition would afford us all a powerful encouragement.
“Among the questions which have still to be examined have been cited:
“1. The precise designation of the basis of operation to be acquired on the
coast of Zanzibar, and near the mouth of the Congo, either by conventions
with the chiefs, or by purchase or leases from private persons.
“2. Designation of the routes to be opened in their order towards the
interior, and of the stations—hospitable, scientific, and pacifying—to be
organised, as the means of abolishing slavery, of establishing concord
among the chiefs, of procuring for them just and distinguished judges, etc.
“3. The creation—the work being well defined—of an International and
Central Committee, and of National Committees to prosecute the execution,
each in what will directly concern it, by placing the object before the public
of all countries, and by making an appeal to the charitable that no good
cause has ever addressed in vain.
“Such are, gentlemen, the different points which seem to merit your
attention. If there are others, they will appear in the course of your
discussions, and you will not fail to throw light on them.
“My desire is to serve, as you shall point out to me, the great cause for
which you have already done so much. I place myself at your disposal for
this purpose, and offer you a cordial welcome.”
The object of the Conference, thus clearly outlined by the King, was
loyally adhered to by the delegates, their discussions being strictly confined
to geography and philanthropy, nothing political or personal obtruding itself
upon their deliberations. At the close of its three days’ session the
Conference submitted to King Leopold the following declaration upon its
labours:
In order to attain the object of the International Conference of Brussels—that is to
say, to explore scientifically the unknown parts of Africa, to facilitate the opening of
the routes which shall enable civilisation to penetrate into the interior of the African
Continent, to discover the means for the suppression of the slave trade among the
Negro race in Africa—it is necessary:
(1) To organise on a common international plan the exploration of the unknown
parts of Africa, by limiting the regions to be explored—on the east and on the west by
the two oceans, the Indian and the Atlantic, on the south by the basin of the Zambesi,
on the north by the frontiers of the new Egyptian territory and the independent
Soudan. The most appropriate mode of effecting this exploration will be the
employment of a sufficient number of detached travellers, starting from different
bases of operation.
(2) To establish, as bases for these operations, a certain number of scientific and
hospitable stations both on the coasts and in the interior of Africa—for example, at
Bagamoyo and Loanda, as well as at Ujiji, Nyangwe, and other points already known,
which it would be necessary to connect by intermediate stations.
Belgian
Enterprise.
I n every case the National Committees of the International
Association for the Exploration and Civilisation of Central
Africa displayed extraordinary activity; but, as was to be
expected, their rate of progress was measured by the Belgian Committee,
which met, for the first time, on the 6th of November, 1876, in Brussels,
just six weeks after the close of the Brussels Geographical Conference
which had decreed its existence. As was fitting in the circumstances, King
Leopold was present at the meeting, and delivered upon that occasion a
speech which may be regarded as an amplification of his Majesty’s previous
pronouncements on the situation, now in some measure become political, in
Central Africa.
“Gentlemen,” said King Leopold, “the slave trade, which still exists over
a large part of the African Continent, is a plague-spot that every friend of
civilisation would desire to see disappear.”
House of Governor-General, Boma.
“The horrors of that traffic, the thousands of victims massacred each year
through the slave trade, the still greater number of perfectly innocent beings
who, brutally reduced to captivity, are condemned en masse to forced
labour in perpetuity, have deeply moved all those who have even partially
studied this deplorable situation, and concerting, in a word, for the founding
of an International Association to put an end to an odious traffic which
makes our epoch blush, and to tear aside the veil of darkness which still
enshrouds Central Africa. The discoveries due to daring explorers permit us
to say from this day that it is one of the most beautiful and the richest
countries created by God.
“The Conference of Brussels has nominated an Executive Committee to
carry into execution its declaration and resolutions.
“The Conference has wished, in order to place itself in closer relationship
with the public, whose sympathy will constitute our force, to found, in each
State, National Committees. These Committees, after delegating two
members from each of them to form part of the International Committee,
will popularise in their respective countries the adopted programme.
“The work has already obtained in France and Belgium important
subscriptions, which make us indebted to the donors. These acts of charity,
so honourable to those who have rendered them, stimulate our zeal in the
mission we have undertaken. Our first task should be to touch the hearts of
the masses, and, while increasing our numbers, to gather in a fraternal
union, little onerous for each member but powerful and fruitful by the
accumulation of individual efforts and their results.
“The International Association does not pretend to reserve for itself all
the good that could or ought to be done in Africa. It ought, especially at the
commencement, to forbid itself a too extensive programme. Sustained by
public sympathy, we hold the conviction that, if we accomplish the opening
of the routes, if we succeed in establishing stations along the routes
followed by the slave merchants, this odious traffic will be wiped out, and
that these routes and these stations, while serving as fulcrums for travellers,
will powerfully contribute towards the evangelisation of the blacks, and
towards the introduction among them of commerce and modern industry.
“We boldly affirm that all those who desire the enfranchisement of the
black races are interested in our success.
“The Belgian Committee, emanating from the International Committee,
and its representative in Belgium, will exert every means to procure for the
work the greatest number of adherents. It will assist my countrymen to
prove once more that Belgium is not only a hospitable soil, but that she is
also a generous nation, among whom the cause of humanity finds as many
champions as she has citizens.
“I discharge a very agreeable duty in thanking this assembly, and in
warmly congratulating it for having imposed on itself a task the
accomplishment of which will gain for our country another brilliant page in
the annals of charity and progress.”
We have here, in his Majesty’s own words, a very lucid and reiterated
exposition of King Leopold’s main object in concerning himself with
Central African affairs—the suppression of the slave trade, with consequent
moral and material advancement of its peoples. But let it not be lost sight of
that, subsidiary to this lofty mission, King Leopold has never disavowed—
nay, his Majesty had more than once expressly declared it—his desire to
find in Africa new markets for Belgian manufactures, and a wide field for
the surplus population of overcrowded little Belgium, where his people
might live and where their peculiar genius in the arts and sciences might
flourish unfettered by alien laws.
The experience of recent travellers, and particularly of
Livingstone and Stanley, had demonstrated the truth of what Old Beliefs
Disproved.
had hitherto always been disbelieved, viz., that it was possible
for the white man to live and maintain his health in Central Africa. This fact
alone was of vast importance; but when was added to it proof that the
country was fertile, with immense natural sources of wealth, needing only
the brain and hand of civilised man to tap them, a prosperous future for the
country was assured. England, France, and Portugal, but notably England,
had already claimed large sections of Africa for their own, and Italy and
Germany—especially Germany—were feverishly anxious to follow suit.
But it is doubtful if among all the students of the African problem—and
they numbered among them the ablest of every nation—there was at this
period another man with prescience to foresee, as we now know King
Leopold must have foreseen, the illimitable possibilities of Central Africa.
Indeed it is tolerably certain that had the great nations realised the potential
value of this region, their cupidity would never have permitted them to
allow its sovereignty to become vested in any single individual with claim
to it based upon anything except irresistible material force. King Leopold’s
claim, as we have already partly seen, and as will presently be fully
demonstrated, had for its foundation a long-cherished and active
philanthropic interest in the welfare of its natives, chiefly in the form of the
suppression of slavery; the expenditure, out of his Majesty’s private purse,
of large sums of money for exploration, establishment of route stations, etc.;
and generally for calling the attention of the civilised world to a little-
known and less-cared-for region commonly thought to be worthless.
The Congo at Lokandu.