"Unjust Steward."

His first act was to wage wars upon the Arabs. From the Soudan and
from the East Coast they were raiding the Congo for slaves and
ivory, and he drove them from it. By these wars he accomplished two
things. As the defender of the slave, he gained much public credit,
and he kept the ivory. But war is expensive, and soon he pointed out
to the Powers that to ask him out of his own pocket to maintain
armies in the field and to administer a great estate was unfair. He
humbly sought their permission to levy a few taxes. It seemed a
reasonable request. To clear roads, to keep boats upon the great
rivers, to mark it with buoys, to maintain wood stations for the
steamers, to improve the "moral and material welfare of the
natives," would cost money, and to allow Leopold to bring about
these improvements, which would be for the good of all, he was
permitted to levy the few taxes. That was twenty years ago; to-day I
saw none of these improvements, and the taxes have increased.

From the first they were so heavy that the great trade houses, which
for one hundred years in peace and mutual goodwill bartered with the
natives, found themselves ruined. It was not alone the export taxes,
lighterage dues, port dues, and personal taxes that drove them out
of the Congo; it was the King appearing against them as a rival
trader, the man appointed to maintain the "open door." And a trader
with methods they could not or would not imitate. Leopold, or the
"State," saw for the existence of the Congo only two reasons: Rubber
and Ivory. And the collecting of this rubber and ivory was, as he
saw it, the sole duty of the State and its officers. When he threw
over the part of trustee and became the Arab raider he could not
waste his time, which, he had good reason to fear, might be short,