CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CONCESSIONS _RÉGIME_ IN FRENCH CONGO

“What is important in colonial matters is that the Governments, in their difficult and uncertain, but systematic, march, should have increasingly before them the ideal which they proposed to themselves, and which they never lose sight of in the darkest nights, the star which shines in the heavens, and of which the beams are justice and humanity.”—M. DÉCRAIS, Colonial Minister in the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet.

“We even think that on account of the difficulty, of the impossibility, in which the natives find themselves of making known their feelings and expressing their grievances, the interests of those natives should be the object of special kindness and solicitude....

“Can we allow these natives to be subjected to the unbridled exploitation, to the economical servitude with which they are threatened? The exclusive right which the Concessionnaires will arrogate to themselves of buying from the natives living upon their concessions at such prices as they, the Concessionnaires, choose to impose, the natural products of the soil, or the harvest which their labour has produced, is but a disguised form of slavery.... In conclusion, we can but say that this Concession _régime_ is antagonistic to the well-being, to the material and moral progress of our natives, and to the responsibilities we have assumed in submitting them to our domination.”—“Memorial” of the “French West African Company”[227] to M. Décrais.

By one of those extraordinary contradictions of which French history affords so many curious examples, liberty-loving France, with her splendid record in West Africa, having proved her capacity to successfully manage possessions in West Africa; numbering among her officials and merchants connected with West Africa men of the highest moral calibre, imbued with humanitarian instincts and earnest advocates of a sound native policy; has within the last few years sanctioned the institution of a _régime_ of territorial monopolies in the French Congo which has already led to deplorable occurrences, and cannot fail to cause still greater evils if permitted to continue. To explain all the phases of this grave departure from French traditions in West Africa would require a great deal more space than is here available. One can only give its origin, indicate its main lines and the events which have hitherto taken place in connection with it, and briefly discuss how it affects the general relationship of Western Europe with Western Africa and the interests of British subjects in the maritime zone of the French Congo.

Some three years and a half ago the huge profits earned by certain rubber companies, so-called, in the Congo State; the enormous premiums at which their shares stood on the Antwerp Stock Exchange; the wild speculations which anything to do with Congo rubber gave rise to in Belgium; the colossal increase in the yearly output of rubber from the Congo State, which from a value of 260,000 francs in 1888 had risen to 15,850,000 francs in 1898,[228] provoked in France—or, at any rate, among some influential Frenchmen, notably in Government circles—a desire that similar results should accrue in the French Congo. “Here,” ran the argument, “we have an immense territory as rich in forest products, notably rubber, as the Congo State, which is doing very little, which for years has been a drag upon the metropolis; while the Belgians—these new-comers in Africa, these tyros at tropical colonisation—are making fortunes every day. Why cannot we imitate them?” The feeling was thoroughly natural. Those who entertained it, however, forgot four things—three of which may at this stage be referred to—or, if they did not forget them, they at all events brushed them aside in the enthusiasm of the moment. They forgot the causes which had led to the comparative stagnation of French Congo on the one hand and the causes which were moulding a state of prosperity in the remaining French Colonies on the other. They forgot the political ambitions of the astutest diplomatist in Europe—the Sovereign of the Congo State. They forgot _how_ the inflated premiums, colossal profits, and the exaggerated production had been and were being brought about. If the latter point did present itself to the minds of a minority, it was assumed that, under a French administration, abuses such as those known to exist in the Congo State were impossible, and that results in every sense equal to those obtained in the Congo State could be secured in French Congo without them. Swayed by these considerations, the French Government and French Colonial public, with the exception of a handful of far-seeing and experienced men, sought to carry out the new programme without delay.

King Leopold foresaw at once the danger and the opportunity; the danger if a sudden influx of French capital into French Congo should lead to the construction of a railway from the French coast-line to Brazzaville on the Upper Congo, to threaten the monopoly of traffic with the interior enjoyed by the Matadi-Stanley Pool railway; the necessity of averting it by placing the financial control of the French concessions in Belgian hands, whereby the construction of such a line could be delayed _ad infinitum_; and the double advantage of (1) fostering the movement in France, on account of the increased railway freight the development of the movement would bring for the existing Belgian line, to say nothing of the increased customs duties on goods and material for the French Upper Congo (whose only practical route was, of course, _viâ_ Congo State territory), which would accrue to the Congo State for the same reason; and (2) of securing for the small but influential Belgian group of which he is the supremely able leader a preponderating position in the possessions adjoining his own.[229] Gathering his financiers and co-partners in that vast Trust—which is called the Independent State of the Congo—King Leopold flung himself into the breach, and with such good effect that French Congo was in an incredibly short space of time partitioned on paper into some forty odd concessions of all shapes and dimensions, with nominal French heads, but with Belgians on the board of administration, a majority of Belgian shareholders behind, with Belgian capital either openly or in disguised form the controlling factor, with strings pulled in Belgium, ideas borrowed from Belgium, Belgian methods of tropical African development and Belgian methods of rigging the home markets writ large all over them.[230] With what consummate skill the Sovereign of the Congo State weaved his nets, flung them forth and landed his fish, only those who have had a glimpse of what has gone on behind the scenes can describe. It would make a curious story, and not an altogether savoury one, and perhaps some day it will be fully told.[231] The clever manipulating tactics of the king were only equalled by the infatuation, the heedlessness, the utter want of reflection which characterised the action of the French Government of the day and the noisiest section of the French Colonial party. A policy involving the most far-reaching consequences was suddenly adopted with, as a French writer of distinction has said, “une insouciance, une désinvolture presque criminelles.” Seemingly hypnotised, France plunged headlong into an abyss whence she is vainly seeking to emerge, and in which she has already soiled her hands, and as De Brazza rather nobly puts it, “compromised her dignity.”

Meanwhile the French Congo Concessions are in being, and what has been the outcome up to the present after more than two years of the experiment? The promoters have done excellently well. Floating their concessions at absurd premiums on the Antwerp market, and coming on the crest of the rubber wave, they were able—not in all cases perhaps, but generally—to dispose of their holdings at substantial profits. The shareholders who imitated their example showed prescience, for, with the exception of two companies, there has not been one single transaction this year in the shares of forty-three of these companies which are still quoted in the Antwerp financial and Congo organs! Their paper, in fact, is unsaleable. Several of the companies have fizzled out. Those who have not been allowed to prey on the legitimate barter trade existing in the Maritime Zone are in more or less of a moribund condition, and after squandering their shareholders’ money have accomplished absolutely nothing. But what of the effect upon the country? Free trade in the Maritime Zone has disappeared, and with it the revenue it supplied to the Administration. The export trade has actually decreased. The finances are so gravely compromised that a loan of 10,000,000 francs is spoken of, and at one period last year there was not even available in the local treasury sufficient cash to pay the salaries of officials. All public works and improvements of any kind are, of course, suspended. The local Courts are kept busy with endless litigation between Concessionnaire Companies who accuse one another of poaching upon their respective preserves, the boundaries of none of which have, by the way, ever been delimited. There have been two native risings attended with considerable loss of life and destruction of property, and chaos reigns supreme. The Paris Colonial organs are filled with suggestions, exhortations, threats, revilings, but with the solitary exception of one Deputy[232]—M. le Comte d’Agoult—and a handful of courageous journalists, such as M. Jean Hess, the African explorer, and M. Serge Basset, of _La Revue_, no one of note in French Colonial circles has boldly tackled the subject, gone to the root of it, or preached the only possible solution. The fact that the affair has raised an international problem—or rather two—of great delicacy, may have something to do with the unwillingness to come to close quarters displayed by the leading organs of the French Press. But it is lamentable, in every sense of the word, that France with all her generous instincts should be able on this occasion to record but very few protesting voices against the fatal reversal of the wise and just native policy she has hitherto pursued in the main, and with such conspicuous success, in her other West African possessions.

For it is in the relation it bears towards the natives that the concession _régime_ in French Congo offers the strongest ground for criticism. The saying that “evil communications corrupt good manners” was never more applicable than in this case. Once started on the road mapped out three years ago, subsequent events became inevitable. It would have needed a man of iron—and the warmest friends of the ex-French Colonial Minister, who was not the initiator, but the successor to a heritage of trouble, would not credit him with such proclivities—to have stemmed the tide and refused, even at the risk of resigning, to allow his country to be dragged along the path of reaction towards which the concession _régime_ infallibly tended. Step by step the French Government has found itself impelled to gravitate nearer to the Belgian conception. The Concessionnaires found English and German merchants trading peacefully with the natives on what they claimed, according to their contracts with the French Government, to be their own property. Disputes arose, seizures of produce took place, and it became increasingly urgent to define the “rights” of the concessionnaires. M. Décrais hung back a long time, but goaded by nearly all the Colonial and some of the daily newspapers, with constant pressure brought to bear upon him from influential quarters, he was fain at last to take the leap. He took it, and through the Governor of French Congo issued a decree (March 20, 1901) as to which one can only say that, if a few years ago it had been predicted that a French Minister could have framed such a document, the prophecy would have earned the contemptuous unbelief of all Frenchmen, or foreigners acquainted with the part played by France in Western Africa.

The decree declared that one idea dominated[233] the entire concession policy, viz. that the products of the soil belonged to the concessionnaires, who alone had a right to dispose of them, the natives not being entitled to sell them to any one but the concessionnaires. To tone down the arbitrary nature of this promulgation, mention was made of native reserves, where the natives would be free to do what they liked. But this apparent modification of the absolutism of the decree is entirely illusory for three reasons: (1) the area of the reserves was not delimited, and in view of the enormous difficulty and expense delimitation would involve, could not hope to be for many years to come; (2) a decision of the local courts had ordained that, pending delimitation of the reserves, the reserves were legally non-existent, and that the whole country was therefore exploitable by the concessionnaires; (3) an antecedent ministerial decree had announced that, when the reserves were delimited, the areas reserved should not include any land producing saleable products.[234] Whatever may have been the difficulties with which the French Colonial Minister was beset, the issue of the above decree cannot in equity be defended. It virtually handed over the population of French Congo to the mercy of European speculators, of Belgians grown fat on the misery and the degradation of the natives in the Congo State. It left the door open to the grossest abuses, the most cynical outrages against humanity. It let loose the tongues and pens of all the apostles of force and coercion for Africa. It reduced the natives to the level of servants and serfs of the greedy clique which had fastened its talons in the country, and it strengthened the position of the Congo State in Europe.

Secure in the official recognition of their “rights,” the concessionnaire companies’ next move was precisely what might have been expected in view of the class of men controlling them. Legitimate commerce having no place in their calculations, they at once started a “campaign” for the purpose of forcing the French Government to coerce the natives into bringing rubber and other forest produce to their factories, on such terms as they, the concessionnaires, chose to pay for the labour expended by the natives in collecting it. While their subsidised organs daily devoted reams to prove that compulsion was essential in dealing with primitive peoples, their agents in Africa hastened, as far as possible, to put these principles into practice. Arms of precision were smuggled into the country, and soon the concessionnaires were attempting on a smaller scale to copy the exploits of their countrymen on the other side of the Congo River. _Facilis descensus Averni._ The agitation was partly met by the application of a hut-tax paid in kind, the produce to be handed in by the natives to the Government authorities, who would dispose of it to the concessionnaires at a nominal price; thus giving an appearance of legality to the transaction, and disguising coercion in the garb of administrative requirements. The Government having accomplished nothing whatever in the way of bettering the country, improving communication, or constructing public works from which the natives might be expected to derive some benefit, the hut-tax was naturally resented; its application in French Congo being, moreover, scientifically unsound, and only feasible of accomplishment by a long course of preparation. Grafted upon the action of the concessionnaires, the measure was followed by outbreaks in various directions, especially among the warlike Fans of the Ogowe and the Upper Sangha people.

This new step on the part of the French Government stirred up for a time the opponents of the concessionnaire _régime_ in France. De Brazza sent a memorable protest to the _Temps_. Its concluding passage is well worth quoting:

“France has assumed a duty towards the native tribes (of French Congo) who for twenty-seven years have lent their assistance in the work of expansion. These people have received from us the seal of their future liberties.... We must not sacrifice them to the vain hope of immediate results by thoughtless measures of coercion opposed to the generous ideas which our flag personifies. We should be committing a great mistake to discount that result, by enforcing at the present time taxes upon the products of the soil, or by compelling the natives to work in the form of forced labour or military service. It would constitute a great blow to our dignity if such labour and such taxes were converted into a sort of draft-to-order in favour of the concessionnaires.... It is to recall these considerations to men’s minds, and to avoid the moral bankruptcy to which economic and financial disasters may lead us, that I have emerged from the reserve I had imposed upon myself.”[235]

Just then, too, one of the very few genuine French concerns among the concessionnaire companies, managed by a Frenchman distinguished for his explorations in the country, M. Fondère, wrote publicly to the Colonial Minister, abandoning his concession:

“Experience has convinced us,” he wrote, “that, notwithstanding any modifications of detail which your department might suggest, either in the administrative organisation of the Congo Colony or in the agreement between the Government and the Concessionnaires, the exclusive monopoly of the concessions is a vain epithet. The right to sell his products to whomsoever he may please cannot be denied to the native, because he has always possessed it. Moreover, all stipulations to the contrary notwithstanding, it would be quite illusory to think of taking this right away from the native. That could only be done by force of arms.”

Shortly afterwards, M. Albert Cousin, also a well-known man in French Colonial circles, who had previously been a warm defender of the concessions _régime_, published a pamphlet to the effect that he had changed his mind, and was now convinced the experiment was a mistaken one.[236]

These repeated blows staggered for a moment the defenders of the Belgian conception in France. The newspaper which had the most largely contributed to influence French Colonial opinion even went so far as to admit that it could not but be “very much impressed by the new ideas which are coming to light.” The ideas are not new. They are as old as the hills. They date back from the time when man, evolving from the brute, became a law-maker, and decided that certain fixed principles of morality should form the basis of social order.

That temporary hesitation offered a great opportunity for French statesmanship, but no one came forward to enforce the lesson. And so the powerful influences which had been at work from the first set themselves to destroy the “impression” created. They partially succeeded, but they could not destroy it altogether, and I rather fancy it is becoming more pronounced and will eventually carry the day. One factor, at any rate, is likely to assist its growth not a little—the extravagant demands of the concessionnaires and the violent attacks on the French Government on the part of the Belgian organs devoted to the interests of their compatriots in French Congo. The institution of the hut-tax was merely a sop. It staved off the clamour for a time, but in the nature of things could not last for long. To feed the army of concessionnaires with the proceeds of a hut-tax an army of native levies is required. That is what the concessionnaires claim must be organised, and once more the same strings are being pulled, the same arguments put forward, the same machinery set in motion. The French Government must do what the Congo State has done. It must raise 15,000 or 20,000 men, arm them with weapons of precision and turn them loose upon the population in order to enforce a tribute on the yield of which the concessionnaires shall not only live but run their shares up to high premiums, present respectable dividends to their Belgian holders, and generally make money at the expense of the natives of the French Congo, using the French Government as a sort of decoy-duck the while. I doubt if it will work. I fancy King Leopold and his friends are going rather too far. But one thing at least is certain. Either the concessionnaires, who know nothing of trade and are not concerned with mere matter-of-fact commercial considerations, who have never looked upon commerce as an element in their “business,” will themselves be compelled to throw up the sponge; or they will compel in one shape or another the French Government to give them physical means to establish slavery in the French Congo, as it has been established in the Congo State. To suppose the latter is almost an impossibility, notwithstanding all that has happened, and it is perhaps not displaying too great an optimism to hope that the concession _régime_ in French Congo may perish from its own internal corruption. Meanwhile it remains to be seen how that _régime_ has affected and continues to affect British interests, and the part it plays in the international situation created by the proceedings of the Congo State.