A most formidable indictment of the administrative methods of the
Congo Free State has just been published in the shape of a volume by M. Felicien Cattier, a Professor at the University of Brussels, and a well-known authority on Colonial questions. He maintains that the whole State is administered, not as a colony, but as a financial speculation, the revenue being used, not for the benefit of the country which produces it, but for the private schemes of the Sovereign. In short, the drawbacks to all government by commercial companies appear there in their most extreme form. From the 'Domains de la Couronne King Leopold has drawn some seventy millions of francs per annum, which sums are not accounted for in the State Budget, but go to finance his Private enterprises. They have been applied, among other purposes, to the purchase of land around Brussels and Ostend, and for various public works in Belgium. The Congo Free State Budgets for the past ten years show a loss of twenty-seven million francs; one hundred and thirty millions have been borrowed; while in the meantime large revenues are flowing from part of the territory which are devoted to private ends. We agree with M. Cattier that it is highly undesirable that any Monarch should hold a large private estate under the guise of a colony. The author also points out that in the Congo State fifty per cent. of the entire revenue is raised by the collection of rubber, as against fifteen per cent. in German East Africa and six per cent. in the British East Africa Protectorate.
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