The Justice of the White Man.—
The Rev. W. L. Ferguson, in a report to the World's Christian Citizenship Conference, at this writing in session in Philadelphia, declares that previous to the organization of the Congo Free State the land was held by the tribes, with boundaries clearly understood, tho not all was cultivated. The unoccupied land, that is, that outside the native villages and uncultivated, was taken by the state regardless of tribal claims, and the natives were forbidden to settle on any part of this land of which as tribes they held original possession. “The state, and commercial companies holding concessions from the state, thus obtained control, the monopoly, of nearly all the lands and produce of the Congo Free State. Rubber and ivory could not be gathered, or disposed of to private parties. The seller was regarded as a thief and the buyer as an accomplice, and prosecuted as such. The only hope of the native, outside the small garden patches under cultivation, lay in working for the state or for the commercial companies. This labor was ill paid in barter goods or in brass rods, of doubtful value.” For years the native was taxed, payable in enforced labor, ad libitum, resulting in many cases in practical slavery. The native population is estimated to have shrunk during the last thirty-five years from 30,000,000 to 10,000,000. And this is what greed has ever done through natural man when it was given full sway.