King Leopold has delivered a startling counterstroke to the projects
of reform on the Congo. At the moment when a Commission representing the Belgian Parliament and the Congo Free State is considering the terms on which the pro- posed annexation can take place, he has officially announced the creation of a new company to which he has banded over the rights of the "Domaine de In Couronne." The decree authorising the establishment of the new company has created a considerable stir, and provoked the following remarkable com- ment in Le Patriots :—" The King has handed over to a few trusted persons, in private ownership for an unlimited period, the Crown domain, in which the natives are exploited more than anywhere else, and the revenue of which, as the King stated twelve months ago, and after him M. de Sinet de Naeyer, is indispensable to Belgium if the Congo is to be governed without deficits. By its resolution passed in December, 1906, Parliament has declared that Belgium was deaf to such arguments, and would dispose of the Crown domain in the way it pleased best. The King now replies by delivering the Crown domain to a group of intimate friends for ever. Five- sixths of the Congo are thus alienated or encumbered with charges and services."
