A debate on the Congo Free State occupied much time
in the Commons on Wednesday, and did not produce a very satisfactory result. Mr. Herbert Samuel and Sir Charles Dilke described, and in the general opinion of the House proved, the frightful misgovernment of the State, and showed that it was mainly due to the concession of nine vast territorial monopolies established for the benefit of private companies and of the King of the Belgians, who is absolute within the State and exacts heavy royalties. These monopolies cover the greater part of the State, that is, of a million square miles, and almost completely extinguish British trade, while yielding vast profits to the monopolists. As these monopolies were distinctly forbidden by the Treaty of Berlin, the speakers proposed a Resolution binding the Goverament to bring the violation of the Treaty within the cognisance of the signatory Powers. No one in the House denied the existence of terrible abuses, the evidence for which was pronounced overwhelming ; but no speaker departed from the most "correct" debating attitude, or broke into that storm of indignation which is customary whenever the facts are alluded to in private. They simply demanded that the signatory Powers should be asked whether they were aware that their own merciful and civi- lised arrangements had been set at naught.
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