BELGIUM AND THE CONGO.
LTO THE EDITOR OE THE " spscrAros..-i SIR,—Next month will be the crucial one in the long fight against Congo misrule. The result of the partial elections in Belgium shows that we need be under no apprehension that the impossible annexation proposals made by the Belgian Government represent the views of the Belgian people. Those proposals would perpetuate the basic evil of the present system,—viz., the claim of the Administration to proprietor- ship over forest produce—the trading wealth of the native population—and the extension of the concessionnaire com- panies. The Belgian Parliamentary Opposition is virtually unanimous in rejecting the present proposals, and there can be no doubt that if the British Government stands firm, the Treaty will not pass in its present form. In asking for what you have rightly characterised as the total reversal of the present economic system as the price of a British recognition of Belgian annexation, the Congo Reform Association is merely demanding the re-establishment of normal conditions of administration in the Congo,—such as prevail, for example, in the British possession of Southern Nigeria, which offers many analogies with the Congo, and where the inalienability of land and forest produce is the fundamental basis of
administration.—I am, Sir, &c., E. D. MonEL.
Hawarden, near Chester.
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