y down the hill we heard shouting and hissing. We stopped and
looked back. On the crest were a thousand native women, jeering,
hooting, and pointing their fingers at the Minister, who immediately
asked the cause of the demonstration. When the agent called for an
explanation a big black woman said:

"Ask the 'Bula Matadi' why the franc buys so little now? We only get a
few goods for a big lot of money."

I had gone into the wilds to escape from economic unrest and all the
confusion that has followed in its wake, yet here in the heart of
Central Africa, I found our old friend the High Cost of Living working
overtime and provoking a spirited protest from primitive savages! It
proves that there is neither caste, creed nor colour-line in the
pocket-book. Like indigestion, to repeat Mr. Pinero, it is the universal
leveller of all ranks.

IV

On this trip Franck outlined to me his whole colonial creed. It was a
gorgeous June morning and we had just left a particularly picturesque
Arabized village behind us. Hundreds of natives had come out to welcome
the Minister in canoes. They sang songs and played their crude musical
instruments as they swept alongside our boat. We now sat on the upper
deck and watched the unending panorama of palm trees with here and there
a clump of grass huts.

"All colonial development is a chain which is no stronger than its
weakest link and that is the native," said the Minister. "As you build
the native, so do you build the whole colonial structure. Hence the
importance of a high moral standard. You must conform to the native's
traditions, mentality and temperament. Give him a technical education
something like that afforded by Booker Washington's Tuskegee Institute.
Show him how to use his hands. He will then become efficient and
therefore contented. It is a mistake to teach him a European language. I
prefer him to be a first-class African rather than third-class European.

"The hope of the Congo lies in industrialization on the one hand, and
the creation of new wealth on the other. By new wealth I mean such new
crops as cotton and a larger exploitation of such old products as rice
and palm fruit. Rubber has become a second industry although the
cultivated plantations are in part taking the place of the old wild
forests. The substitute for rubber as the first product of the land is
the fruit of the oil palm tree. This will be the industrial staple of
the Congo. I believe, however, that in t