THE STANNARD CASE.
THIS week we have been given a remarkable insight into the real working of the administrative and judicial system of the Congo State. The Rev. E. Stannard, the missionary whose recent trial on a charge of criminal libel has been followed with interest by all who are disquieted by the present state of affairs in that country, has published a full account of his case. It is true, of course, that it is an ex parts statement, but it seems to us to bear the stamp of accuracy, and we shall be greatly surprised if it is not borne out in full by the official Report which the British Vice-Consul, who was appointed by his Majesty's Government to act as counsel for the accused, will no doubt make to the Foreign Office. We believe it to be so important that the British people should realise the negation of all law and decency which is involved in King Leopold's rule on the Congo that we propose to retell the story.
Mr. Stannard, who is a missionary at Baringa, was one of those who gave evidence before the Commission of Inquiry which went out to the Congo State in the autumn of 1904. The Abir Concession Company had for some time past been remarkable, even on the Congo, for the violence and barbarity of its methods. It had. employed a force of its own irregulars to extort rubber from the natives, and when these ruffians were found insufficient it received permission from the District Commissioner to use Government troops for the purpose. In this com- pany the Congo Government is the largest shareholder, and all reports of its misdeeds were stigmatised by the authorities as falsehoods. Then came the 1904 Com- mission, which invited the missionaries to give evidence, and. heard enough to desire the evidence of native -Witnesses. Mr. Stannard and his friends sent out messengers for this purpose, and the director of the Abir Company endeavoured to checkmate their efforts by raising unfounded charges against the missionaries, which the Commission refused to listen to. Some of the worst outrages had been committed at the little town of Bolima, and Lontulu, the chief, and some twenty of his people came forward as witnesses. A certain M. Hagstrom had been chief of the police in that district, and the evidence mainly concerned his doings. The natives, according to Mr. Stannard, only gave evidence under promise of immunity, of which the Commission, who seem to have been honestly anxious to get at the truth, readily assured them. Mr. Stannard, who naturally imagined that the evidence taken by the Commission would be published, sent to the Congo Reform Association in England a report of the whole proceedings, which he rightly regarded as a privileged document. The Coin- Mission declared the whole system in vogue in the Abir Company's territory to be grossly illegal, and the friends of reform may well have imagined that half the battle had been gained.
Their optimism, however, was not justified. "Within three months after the departure of the Coinmission," says Mr. Stannard, "the whole system was in full swing." M. Hagstrom was promoted to be Commandant, and pre- sently he appeared in the Bolima district, accompanied by the Abir Company's director and fifty armed men, and proceeded to arrest the unfortunate native witnesses who had given evidence. Mr. Stannard reported the matter to the Congo Reform Association, and also to the Governor- General, from whom he got no answer. Instead, how- ever, he received from that functionary what he describes as a "charming letter" inviting his co-operation in pointing out outrages committed on natives. Early in the present year the Governor-General, during a visit to Baringa, mentioned to Mr. Stannard that Commandant Hagstrom was about to bring a charge of criminal libel against him, and went on to ask for further co-operation in the exposure of illegalities. Then began a very curious set of incidents. Every effort was made by the law officers to get Mr. Stannard to con- vict himself in a prior examination as to what he had written. Mr. Stannard, meanwhile, was preparing to go home on holiday, and had got as far as Stanley Pool, when he was informed that if he went to Boma he should not be allowed to leave the country, since he was wanted in the Hagstrom libel case, the trial of which would take place at Coquilhatville in the latter part of April. Legal procedure in the Congo is evidently a strange product. The date and place of trial are fixed before the warrant is issued.
Mr. Stannard was compelled to stay on in the country, and the trial duly began on June 15th and finished on June 25th. The charge was one of "imputing imiliciously and publicly to Commandant Hagstrom precise acts of a nature which attacked his honour or his position, and exposed him to public contempt." He was also charged with accusing the same officer, after the Commis- sion had left, of arresting witnesses who had given evidence, and of continuing the traditional methods of the Abir Company. Mr. Stannard had. assumed that the evidence taken by the Commission would be published, but since no publication had taken place he could make no plea of privilege. His defence was to justify and prove his allegations, but this course presented certain difficulties. He had no copy of the Commission's evidence. Since King Leopold had refused the request of the British Minister in Brussels to supply him with that evidence, it was not likely that his deputies on the Congo would grant the same request to a plain British subject. The difficulty of proving his case from independent evidence lay in the fact that the native witnesses had been intimi- dated, and that, in particular, the chief Lontulu, having suffered deportation and imprisonment, was afraid to stand by the evidence given by him before the Commission. The onus probandi being put on Mr. Stannard, he could not substantiate his statements, though it is to be noted that the prosecution made no attempt to deny the general charges. It was admitted that massacres had taken place at Bolima, and that Commandant Hagstrom had been at the head of the invading force. All that was denied was that certain atrocities mentioned in Lontulu's evidence had taken place on that particular occasion. The result of the trial was that Mr. Stannard was condemned to a fine of £40 and costs, with the alterna- tive of a term of imprisonment. Having deposited the amount of his fine as security and paid the costs of the trial, he has been permitted to appeal.
In our opinion, Mr. Stannard has behaved throughout with courage and good sense, and has suffered very scandalous treatment. If his trial is a fair specimen of the judicial system which that enlightened State has created, then we do not know whether to be more amazed or amused. A prosecution on a criminal charge is treated as a Ministerial act, to be arranged by the Government to suit the convenience of the officials concerned. It casts, however, a lurid light on the nature of King Leopold's zeal for reform. The two Commissions which he has sent out with a great protestation of honest anxiety have been used merely as screens behind which the old scandals can continue unchecked. He has refused to publish the evidence which in all honesty they collected, and, their recommendations have been either neglected or so amended as to be made unrecognisable. And now comes this new revelation, which shows that the local authorities on the Congo are ably seconding their superior in the game of blind-man's-buff. A Commission calls for native witnesses, finds certain practices proven, and condemns them un- hesitatingly. They are hardly out of the country before the man who was responsible for the practices is promoted, his policy is encouraged, and the unfortunate native wit- nesses are punished for giving evidence. Jeshurun, having waxed fat, is beginning to kick with some vigour. Sir Edward Grey, on the presentation of the British Vice- Consul's Report, will have a chance of inquiring into these mischievous antics, and he may be trusted not to fail in his duty.
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