of our Congo officials and
their most highly trained natives were off fighting the Germans in East
Africa, the Colony more than held its own during those terrible years.
In building the new Congo we are going to profit by the example of other
countries and capitalize their knowledge and experience of tropical
hygiene. We propose to combat sleeping sickness, for example, with an
agency similar to your Rockefeller Institute of Research in New York.

"The Congo is bound to become one of the great centers of the world
supply. The Katanga is not only a huge copper area but it has immense
stores of coal, tin, zinc and other valuable commodities. Our diamond
fields have scarcely been scraped, while the agricultural possibilities
of hundreds of thousands of square miles are unlimited.

"The great need of the Congo is transport. We are increasing our river
fleets and we propose to introduce on them a type of barge similar to
that used on the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers.

"An imposing program of railway expansion is blocked out. For one thing
we expect to run a railway from the Katanga copper belt straight across
country to Kinshassa on the Lower Congo. It is already surveyed. This
will tap a thickly populated region and enable the diamond mines of the
Kasai to get the labour they need so sorely. The Robert Williams railway
through Angola will be another addition to our transportation
facilities. One of the richest regions of the Congo is the north-eastern
section. The gold mines at Kilo are now only accessible by river. We
plan to join them up with the railway to be built from Stanleyville to
the Soudan border. This will link the Congo River and the Nile. With our
railroads as with our industrial enterprises, we stick to private
ownership and operation with the State as a partner.

"The new provinces of Ruanda and Urundi will contribute much to our
future prosperity. They add millions of acres to our territory and
3,000,000 healthy and prosperous natives to our population. These new
possessions have two distinct advantages. One is that they provide an
invigorating health resort which will be to the Central Congo what the
Katanga is to the Southern. The other is that, being an immense cattle
country--there is a head of live stock for every native--we will be able
to secure fresh meat and dairy products, which are sorely needed.

"The Congo is not only the economic hope of Belgium but it is teaching
the Belgian capitalist