Note 1 — King Leopold’s Soliloquy

This visit had a more fortunate result than was anticipated. One member of the Commission was a leading Congo official, another an official of the government in Belgium, the third a Swiss jurist. It was feared that the work of the Commission would not be more genuine than that of innumerable so-called “investigations” by local officials. But it appears that the Commission was met by a very avalanche of awful testimony. One who was present at a public hearing writes: “Men of stone would be moved by the stories that are being unfolded as the Commission probes into the awful history of rubber collection.” It is evident the commissioners were moved. Of their report and its bearing upon the international issue presented by the conceded conditions in the Congo State, something is said on a supplementary page of this pamphlet. Certain reforms were ordered by the Commission in the one section visited, but the latest word is that after its departure conditions were soon worse than before its coming.—M. T.