the Congo, and that those that remain have been mutilated, maimed,
or, what was more merciful, murdered. And yet the fourteen
governments, including the United States, have done nothing.

Some tell you they do not interfere because they are jealous one of
the other; others say that it is because they believe the Congo will
soon be taken over by Belgium, and with Belgium in control, they
argue, they would be dealing with a responsible government, instead
of with a pirate. But so long as Leopold is King of Belgium one
doubts if Belgians in the Congo would rise above the level of their
King. The English, when asked why they do not assert their rights,
granted not only to them, but to thirteen other governments, reply
that if they did they would be accused of "ulterior motives." What
ulterior motives? If you pursue a pickpocket and recover your watch
from him, are your motives in doing so open to suspicion?

Personally, although this is looking some way ahead, I would like to
see the English take over and administrate the Congo. Wherever I
visit a colony governed by Englishmen I find under their
administration, in spite of opium in China and gin on the West
Coast, that three people are benefited: the Englishman, the native,
and the foreign trader from any other part of the world. Of the
colonies of what other country can one say the same?

As a rule our present governments are not loath to protect their
rights. But toward asserting them in the Congo they have been moved
neither by the protests of traders, chambers of commerce,
missionaries, the public press, nor by the cry of the black man to
"let my people go." By only those in high places can it be
explained. We will leave it as a curious fact, and return to the