Excerpt from Das Staatsarchiv, 1893, Vol. 54: Sammlung der Officiellen Actenst�cke zur Geschichte der Gegenwart

Attached by all the Powers Signatories of the Berlin Act to the exemption mass. Clause, at least for twenty years, is to be found in all the Conventions con cluded between these Powers and the Congo Free State. The exemptionltmflm clause occupies a prominent position. True, it is said, that the favourable results hoped for from the European occupation after a period of twenty years have been already realized after five. It may be questioned whether this calculation is not rather optimistic. The great efforts made by the Congo Free State to cpen the Upper Congo to civilization and trade are assuredly worthy of recognition. Several stations and centres of administration have been established there; some fiftecn beats plough the waters of the upper river. Much has been accomplished by the infant State, and at great sacrifices. But the organization of the public service is not everything; there must also be the development of trade and agriculture, and these are only just beginning in the Upper Congo. Allow me, Gentlemen, to sketch in a few lines the commercial situation in the Congo Basin. There is no evidence of a progressive movement in the Lower Congo. If, in the last two or three years, the exports have been rather more important than in the two or three previous years, it is owing to more favourable rainy seasons, that great factor in the fertility of the Congo. One may, then, say, that, in the Lower Congo and in the region of the littoral of the Congo Basin, trade has remained stantionary of late years, with periods of prosperity more or less great, according to the abundance er lack of rain. But one valuable article of exportation is at present not found in the Lower Congo. This article is ivory, which the natives used formerly to sell in the Lower Congo, and especially on the littoral of the Portuguese Congo, whereas it is now purchased in the Upper Congo by the commercial houses latterly established there. It is a transference of trade, with this difference - that buying ivory in the interior yields more profit than buying it on the coast did formerly. If, then, the situation in the Lower Congo has remained much the same, one must not forget to notice in the interior the presence of three commercial houses, all possessing steamers, occupied in the purchase of ivory. The exportation of india-rubber, which seems to abound in the interior, is as yet only in its first phase. There are, of course, other products which might be profitably cultivated. But they cannot now be taken into calculation. The cost of transport, in the region of the cataracts, is too high, and transport by bearcrs would, moreover, be insufficient. But, thanks to the energy and enterprising spirit of a Belgien Society, a railway is in process of construction, and will, it is anticipated, connect in three er four years the Lower Congo with the navigable upper river. The transport will then become rapid and less difficult, and a great development of trade and cultivation by Europeans may result. But in the four years which still separate us from of the railway, the commercial and agricultural development can only progress slowly and painfully, iand one may well question the justice, or even the prudence, of imposing taxes on trade.

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