THE "SPECTATOR" AND THE CONGO.
[To THE EDITOR or TILE "SPECTATOR."]
Sxn,—In your issue of July 27th you are taken to task by one of your correspondents for having failed to advocate pressure in dealing with the Congo, while being now ready to urge drastic action in connexion with the atrocities in Peru. Many of your readers must remember your editorial articles in favour of partitioning the Congo State between France and Germany. It is much to be regretted that this consummation was not actually reached. In the first place, it would have meant for the vast regions in question the likelihood of a better system of government and development than seems to be feasible from the slender resources of a tiny Power, even when the decencies of Albertan Belgium have supplanted the infamies of Leopold. In the second place, it would have done something to appease German unrest, which is at bottom a craving for embellishing in Prussian blue a larger surface of the political map. The lines on which the Morocco crisis was recently settled are a clear indication of the value attached by the German Government to territorial expansion in Central Africa in particular. The Spectator project for the Congo would have helped to realize the requirements of Germany on a grander and more satis- fying scale than was feasible last summer. Not only, there- fore, is your correspondent's charge inadmissible, but if the Spectator could have decided the fate of Equatorial Africa the Congo State as such, to the probable advantage of all parties concerned, would have wholly ceased to exist.—I am, Sir, &c., 28 Marlborough Road, Bradford. C. T. KNA.IIS.
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