990
THE COMMISSION (1).
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
| being
CONGO POLITICS.
re.
[May 27, 1907,
viewed with hostility to begin in impressing on bis officials the necessity with, by the very officials who ought to be of increasing the exports to Europe (Daily Press, May 18th.)
most anxious to help. When our readers the King was only following out the It may be most regrettable mental obtuse- have been put in possession of the com- behests of his commission; and looking at ness that after pondering the remarks of His plete report, as well as of Mr. SHELTON the affair from this point of view which EXCELLENCY THE OFFICER ADMINISTERING HOOPER's excellent historical review of was probably the only one from which it THE GOVERNMENT we find
ourselves Sanitary Administration, and some select had ever been presented to him, King unable to see how the conduct of the cor-
testimony like the eminently sensible LEOPOLD came to understand that, so long. rupt employees of the Hongkong Sanitary memorandum of the Hon. Mr. E. OSHORNES AS the European
afforded world was Board drags the name of Englishmao
we must take the proposals and suggestions facilities for trading at the entrance of into the mire, or how it can be said to have of the Commissioners in detail. At present the country, so long it had no ground of 4 tarnished the national honour." As the the cake is too big to assimilate properly; complaint, the internal regulations of the offenders were not all English, Mr MAY it has to be treated Jack-Horner-wise. country being matters of detail expressly might more fittingly have employed the It is absolutely safe to say at once that the left to the judgment of the sovereign. term "Briton", and even then there would Commissioners leave no room for doubt of Unfortunately, some hundred or so British scarcely be enough blushes to go round. It the need for a system that will emancipate missionaries, with what KING LEOPOLD has not been to the public of Hongkong the Colony from the autocraticisms, and doubtless considered their usual objection- the painful shock and surprise that it fads, and wayward ways of officialdom. alle habits of ignorant curiosity about things seems to have been to Mr. MAY; and we do
What little franchise the colonists have in which they were nowise concerned, went. not hear of Englishmen or Britons in this
been given in the past has been sapped and spying about the country and volunteering Colony rushing to the various Consulates undermined, and now is the time, with this advice. More than this, they proved them- to register changes in their nationality.
Report as
selves deaf to the hints given them by the a weapon, to get matlers The corruption unearthed by the Commis- adjusted. After all, officials are public administrators of the Government, and. sion had not been very deeply hidden
servants, although we, and they, are apt not content with this, proceeded to publish before; its existence was more thau
to forget this in Hongkong.
what those officials who had the respon- suspected; any Hongkong lawyer with
sibility of maintaining order could not Chinese 'clients could, if he would, have
but look upon as ignorant libels. This was given the Commission a great many pointers;
proved through the means of an investiga. and the prosecutions prior to the publication
tion undertaken by these maligned officials, this week of the Report gave rise to all the
(Daily Press 20th May).
who in their own eyes, and in those of their discussion on that subject that there is KING LEOPOLD of Belgium is not a monarch monarch emerged victoriously out of the likely to be. It was intelligently observed the record of whose daughty acts will fill ordeal. Not content the missionaries, with by the average commentator that blame any considerable space in history. This is, of
one or two discontented traders, actually attached less to the men who bad thus course, no fault of KING LEOPOLD himself, pressed their complaints on the British forsaken a high standard of integrity nor does it cast any reflection on his personal Government, and that body used its in- than to the systent or no-system which prowess; he being as King of Belgium as
fluence with the King to have the affair made such things possible and easy. That incapable of levying war as the Archbishop investigated. Always willing to listen to view of the matter, broadly, we endorse; of Canterbury himself. Still if. as exocutive well founded complaints, KING LEOPOLD and the conclusions of the Commission enable King of Belgium, and Grand Pensionary of did appoint a commission, and this commis- us to maintain that standpoint. It must seem Europe, he be thus excluded from inauguratsion found out that irregularities bad. to many observers a little suspicious that ing any armed contest on European ground, indeed occurred, but the Government of in South Africa as well as in Hongkong in his private capacity as Sovereign of the the Congo did not think it necessary to such emphasis should be laid on the Congo Free State he may yet have the statement that corruption is practically historic glory of having permanently set publish all this in detail, and KING LEOPOLD confined to subordinates. It looks as if back the boundaries of British Empire. But said that the whole affair had been exaggerated. In his eyes this was, under "the national honour" has to be white- if not permitted by circumstances to assume
the circumstances, quite sufficient, as no washed in sections. Reforms of system, how. the role of an Alexander, and carve out with
damage had been done to the missionaries, ever, would help us to dispense with this his sword kingdoms, he has had abundant and KING LEOPOLD could not be made unsatisfactory way of treating the tarnished opportunities in both his regal and private
responsible, bis appointment containing As Dr. PEARSE would say, it may capacities of advancing the interests of make the place look cleaner, but it doesn't Belgium and of KING LEOPOLD by venture- kill the germs.
One of these days the some mercantile transactions. methods of the London County Couucil medieval days, Belgium, was celebrated for staff will be exposed, and then the the mercantile enterprise of her people and peccadilloes of the Hongkong Sanitary the extent of her external trade, and in Board's servants will pale into comparative these modern times, and under the congenial insignificance. If two shovels aro required guidance of KING LEOPOLD, the port of there, two dozen are ordered, two used, a Antwerp has risen to the first rank amongst dozen disposed of by subordinate employees, the great mercantile emporiums of Furope. and the remaining (say) ten taken down Under such auspices it was but natural that Thames one day and dumped into the sea.
KING LEOPOLD should follow the lead of If you happen to know the dumper, his subjects, and that the mercantile you can get lots of good things very instinct should largely flourish alongside cheap. This has been going on for his more conspicuous displays of regal years, or had been up to balf a dozen years nagnificence. For some thirty years he ago, and we have seen no notice of any arch of the Congo Free State, presiding bas been the practically uncontrolled change yet, except that the public was tired of the Council's
case "extravagance." over an autocracy as unchallenged as that There is little doubt that this sort of thing of the Tsar himself. The products of the goes on wherever, as at Hongkong, public country have been in increasing demand money is spent, 28 the Commission during the greater portion of this term so now tells us, without businesslike checks that there has been every inducement to a and supervision. It is useless, when the monarch, who had the mercantile habit evil becomes too glaring to ignore, to weep actually forced upon him, of seeking to about the tarnishing of the national honour. make the most out of the peculiar situation. National fiddlesticks. The thing to do is to We have seen something even in far distant set about revising the system, or initiating China of the financial and mercantile enter methods that will reduce the tempta prise of the Belgians, so that we can the tions and mitigate the jeopardy of the easier comprehend how absorbing the pursuit Englishman's good name. This the members proved in the comparatively little known of the Commission, in their report, which and hitherto unexploited realms along we now feel entitled to describe as ล the Congo. Professedly the object of the monument of patient study and thorough-International Association which conferred ness, have essayed to do; and though we are not prepared yet to endorse all their
much suggestions, we regret very learn that their recommendations
name.
to
are
no reserve.
This reasonable explanation was curiously considered insufficient by Even in
the British Government, and more un- reasonably still the United States seemed disposed to be dissatisfied with it. It was evident that something must be done to prevent like outrages in future.
the rule of the state upon KING LEOPOLD was to encourage the commercial growth of the huge and hitherto neglected territory watered by the Congo River; so that
Of late years a so-called scientific method of demarking boundaries had sprung into fashion, and the quidnuncs instead of defining the boundary on the spot had contented themselves with saying it was to be formed by a certain parallel or meridian. It can hardly be said that such boundaries are in every respect unobjec tionable, especially in the case of meridians,
most difficult problems in geodesy. In this
the fixing of a meridian being one of the
the thirtieth meridian had for some hundred odd miles been made the boundary between Uganda and the Free State, and the line had been actually marked. A few
later it turned out that the years surveyors had made a mistake, and that the Kunsoro Mountain, and a part of the Albert Edward Nyanza, had been through the
mistake included
in British territory! Nothing was said of it at the time the Kunsoro Mountain, though interesting as one of the clasps of one of the three great volcanic girdles of the earth, being otherwise valueless, and a few miles of sea- Nyanza, not seriously affecting the caval room more or less in the Albert Edward strength of either Great Britain or Belgium. But of course vengeance is sweet, and the British Government had seriously impugned the sovereign right of its neighbour to
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