ing and uplifting of Central Africa. The
General Act of the Berlin Conference begins with an invocation to
Almighty God; and the Brussels Conference imitated its predecessor in
this particular. It is, therefore, as a civilising and moralising agency
that the Congo Government will always be judged at the bar of posterity.

The first essential of success in dealing with backward races is
sympathy with their most cherished notions. Yet from the very outset one
of these was violated. On July 1, 1885, a decree of the Congo Free State
asserted that all vacant lands were the property of the Government, that
is, virtually of the King himself. Further, on June 30, 1887, an
ordinance was decreed, claiming the right to let or sell domains, and to
grant mining or wood-cutting rights on any land, "the ownership of which
is not recognised as appertaining to any one." These decrees, we may
remark, were for some time kept secret, until their effects
became obvious.

All who know anything of the land systems of primitive peoples will see
that they contravened the customs which the savage holds dear. The plots
actually held and tilled by the natives are infinitesimally small when
compared with the vast tracts over which their tribes claim hunting,
pasturage, and other rights. The land system of the savage is everywhere
communal. Individual ownership in the European sense is a comparatively
late development. The Congolese authorities must have known this; for
nearly all troubles with native races have arisen from the profound
differences in the ideas of the European and the savage on the subject
of land-holding.

Yet, in face of the experience of former times, the Congo State put
forward a claim which has led, or will lead, to the confiscation of all
tribal or communal land-rights in that huge area. Such confiscation may,
perhaps, be defended in the case of the United States, where the
new-comers enormously outnumbered the Red Indians, and tilled land that
previously lay waste. It is indefensible in the tropics, where the white
settlers will always remain the units as compared with the millions whom
they elevate or exploit[472]. The savage holds strongly to certain
rudimentary ideas of justice, especially to the right, which he and his
tribe have always claimed and exercised, of _using_ the tribal land for
the primary needs of life. When he is denied the right of hunting,
cutting timber, or pasturage, he feels "cribbed, cabined, and con