Note 44 — Chapter XXX · THE CONGO CAMPAIGN IN ENGLAND

The following letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Congo Reform Association, Liverpool, on December 8, 1904, by the editor of the Catholic Herald (London), indicates that certain British journals are sincerely seeking to expose the truth concerning the Congo and the motives underlying the campaign against the Free State in England. The writer of the letter is the publisher of the thirty-odd leading Catholic papers in the United Kingdom. As a Member of Parliament, and as an editor, his attitude towards public questions has always been conscientious and fearless.

“Sir,—The following matters so intimately concern your veracity, and, therefore, deeply concern the public, in connection with your anti-Congo campaign and your Congo Reform Society, that I draw your attention to the fact that this letter will be printed in full in the Catholic Herald of next week, and will also be sent out broadcast to the newspapers of this country, so that you may have a full opportunity of defending yourself from the most serious charges made therein.

“On the 24th of November last, in defending an abusive attack made by the London Daily News on the Belgian people, in which it referred to them as ‘barbarians,’ you made a statement to the effect that fifteen Congo officials were then in prison at Boma for the grossest outrages upon natives, and that ten more were awaiting their trial.

“In reply to a communication sent to a member of the Belgian House of Representatives, a statement is made by the Belgian authorities, that only two officials are in prison in Boma. This statement was forwarded to the Daily News, which has lent itself to the disgraceful and lying campaign against the Congo, but, although the editor has been several times requested to publish it, he has up till now declined to do so.

“I, therefore, draw your attention to this emphatic contradiction of your story, and, having every confidence in the honesty and truthfulness of the statement made by responsible gentlemen in Brussels, state that your assertion can only be treated as a gross invention, quite on a par with the other methods of your anti-Congo campaign.

“But this is not the most serious matter. On the following point, I charge you with putting forward a statement in the Daily News, with reference to the Congo Reform Society, which you knew to be untrue, for the purpose of deceiving and misleading the public of this country. It was stated in a letter which appeared in the Daily News on November 25th, that Liverpool shippers and merchants were aiding the Congo Reform Society, and financing it. On the 29th November a letter appeared from you in the Daily News, in which you denied this, and called upon the writer to offer an apology for his statement. You proceeded to assert that you had enclosed (for the private information of the Editor of the Daily News) a list of the subscribers to the Congo Reform Society, and the editor supported your statement by the assertion that ‘the list of donors and subscribers supplied does not contain the names of any British merchants or shippers.’

“The clear purport of your letter was to make it out that there was no co-operation between the Liverpool shippers and merchants and this so-called Reform Society, which is nothing more or less than a bogus name adopted to cover the campaign of falsehood and calumny which you and your friends have entered upon.

“On November 30th the following statement was published in the Daily News in answer to your denial:—‘With reference to the Liverpool merchants I have not seen the “private list” that he (Mr. Morel) forwards to you. I cannot tell whether it contains the names of all the subscribers to the Congo Reform Society, but I cannot accept the denial of the secretary with reference to the Liverpool merchants, in view of the candid admission of Mr. Fox Bourne that some of the merchants in Liverpool are working with the Society, and his further admission that they had helped to finance it. I believe Mr. Fox Bourne’s statement, and if an apology is required for perversion of the facts, the secretary of the Congo Reform Society must make that apology.’

“To that emphatic disproval of your statement, you have up till now made no reply. In fact you cannot deny Mr. Fox Bourne’s honest admission, which has already appeared in our columns, and of which evidently you were entirely ignorant at the time you attempted to throw dust into the eyes of the readers of the Daily News by your untruthful denial.

“Now, one of two things: either you are in a position to free yourself from this charge of deception and untruthful statement put forward for the purpose of deceiving the public, or you are not. If you are in a position to do so, come forward immediately, in the interests of the Congo Reform Society, and of yourself as its secretary. If you are not in a position to disprove this statement and to substantiate your words, you stand convicted of flagrant deception and falsehood on a most important public matter, and the people of this country will know how to judge a person, or a society, which descends to such methods for the purpose of bolstering up selfish and disgraceful designs.

“At the very moment that you were writing this denial in the columns of the Daily News, you were in treaty with a former Congo official, and bribing him for the purpose of giving evidence against the Congo State, and as a witness to the document that passed between you, you called in Mr. John Holt, merchant, 81, Dale Street, Liverpool, who was associated with you in this attempt to purchase testimony, and who actually paid, at the Exchange Hotel, Liverpool, on the 21st November last, a sum of £40 to Mr. Benedetti, the Congo ex-official referred to, and yet you have the impudence and the hardihood to assert that the Liverpool shippers and Liverpool merchants are not associated with the Congo Reform Society!

“Nor are these all the inventions, perversions, and misrepresentations which can be proved against you in connection with this movement.

“The book that you have just written and published is packed with such lies and suppressions of truth. You print a travesty of the case of the man Stokes, who was executed in the Congo, and you say that the charge against him was ‘of trading with natives,’ whereas, as a matter of fact, he was proved to have supplied the cruel and barbarous Arab slave raiders of the Congo, who have been put down by the Congo Government, with guns and ammunition for the purpose of carrying on their nefarious work.

“These slave raiders evidently receive your warm sympathy, and the man Stokes, who helped them to carry on their trade, is held up by you as a martyr! Yet you dare to appear before the people of this country as a friend of the natives of the Congo, and your present campaign is ostensibly carried on for the amelioration of their condition!

“Again, you have ventured to make a most infamous charge against Catholic missionaries in the Congo. In a letter to the Times you said that ‘they dared not state in public what they have said in private.’ In other words, you accuse them of double dealing of the basest character, like Mr. Fox Bourne, who says, ‘they offer religion to the natives only as a bribe, or to terrorise them into further enslavement.’

“You have never produced a single iota of evidence in support of this statement against the Catholic missionaries, who are doing such splendid work in the Congo territory. We characterise the statement as a gross and palpable invention, but, in that respect, it has only been on a par with the general policy of yourself and the so-called ‘Congo Reform Society’ in connection with these matters. “It has also been asserted by the secretary of the Aborigines’ Protection Society—which has been mainly responsible, with yourself and the Liverpool shippers and merchants, for working up this campaign of calumny—that the clerical party in Belgium is supporting the King in his Congo policy, irrespective of any atrocities that may be committed, because the King has agreed to support them in Belgium. This is not only a libel on Belgian Catholics and the Belgian people—who have been insolently referred to by the Daily News as ‘barbarians’—but is amply disproved by the fact that the most recent exposure of your tactics, and the tactics of your society, has been made in the columns of the well-known anti-clerical paper, The Independance Belge, of Brussels, which has published the disclosures with reference to your bribing of a Congo official to secure evidence from him, and has amply exposed, on many occasions, the selfish and dishonest character of this anti-Congo campaign.

“You have printed the grossest inventions with reference to the treatment of British natives in Congo territory. You have said that at Lagos, and in the surrounding district, if the word ‘Congo’ is mentioned to a native he will make for the bush if he is on land, and will jump into the water if he happens to be on sea, in order to escape going to the Congo!

“A full and impartial inquiry made by a number of English gentlemen at Lagos, and the evidence of one hundred and seventy-five natives taken on oath, shows how baseless and unscrupulous is your statement. One English gentleman declares that ‘in a single week’s time he would undertake to send two thousand natives to the Congo, if the English Government would permit their enrolment’—the taxation being so much heavier in British territory than in Congo territory, that natives have to seek in the latter the means of earning the taxation which they are compelled to pay to the British administration.

“Missionaries of all classes, Catholic and non-Catholic, have borne ample testimony to the humane and civilising influence of the Congo administration. Englishmen like Lord Mountmorres, Major Harrison, of Hull, Mr. Grenfell, Mr. Bell, Mr. Holland, Mr. Maguire, as also Mrs. French-Sheldon, Mrs. Doering, and others, have borne the most emphatic testimony to the lies and misrepresentations that have been so sedulously spread by yourself and your friends with reference to the Congo administration.

“You cannot have failed to notice that in La Vérité sur le Congo for October-November, 1904, page 3, you are accused of actually having faked certain photographs which appeared in your book—one on page 49, in which certain natives are represented holding cut-off hands. The publication referred to says that ‘the hands seem to have been added afterwards’; and, with regard to a photograph on page 225 of your book, the same publication says that ‘the chains around the necks of the natives would also appear to have been designed on the plate.’

“You have put these photographs forward as real. Will you produce the negatives and the name of the person who took the actual photographs? Or will you remain content to rest under the charge of fabricating evidence of this description to deceive your readers?

“The Catholic Herald denounces, and will denounce, outrages upon natives and wrongdoing and maladministration of native territories, whether by Belgians or by any other people. No doubt wrongdoing has taken place; but is it of such a character as justifies people in this country taking up arms against those responsible for it?

“Is it not rather inseparable from the administration of native territories? Let any one responsible for native administration answer this question, but let not the good cause of fair play and justice for the natives be disgraced and besmirched by the recklessness and viciousness that have been displayed in connection with this Congo agitation.

“The Catholic Herald accepts in full all responsibility for the statements made herein, and for the publication of them, and for their circulation broadcast through the Press of this country, and believes that in doing so it is discharging a public duty, not only to the Catholic name, which you have foully libelled, but also to the cause of international peace and goodwill, which this anti-Congo campaign, based on selfish and sordid motives, has done so much to impair.

“The administration of the Congo will compare more than favourably with the administration of native territories under British rule. There is more consideration shown to the natives, more care evinced for their interests, and they are less heavily taxed, and more humanely treated in the Congo, than is the case in any British territory in Africa to-day.

“Some of the lies sent forth on the wings of the Press are hereby nailed to the counter, and it is to be hoped that yourself, or your Society, will at once disprove, by any means at your disposal, charges which, if not so disproved, clearly show that your evidence in connection with these matters is discredited and untrustworthy, and that no one will be justified in paying attention to any statement of yours, unless supported by evidence that has not been purchased or invented.

“The Editor, “The Catholic Herald.”