To employ forced labour upon any kind of work which carries with it a financial advantage partakes of slavery. A merchant obtaining forced labour at his own price is thereby, in principle, engaging in slavery, and if by obtaining such labour he is able to enter into unfair competition, he is further guilty of doing a gross injustice to his fellow-merchants. The Belgians are extremely prone to this form of labour. In the Congo there is a good deal of State commercial enterprise, which may yet ruin the individual merchant. The Belgian Government is doing the larger proportion of transport on the vast fluvial system of the Congo, and thereby competes with the Dutch House and other transport companies. These transport steamers are all driven with wood fuel cut from the forests. Every few miles along the banks of the Congo river there may be seen stacks of fire logs cut into lengths of about eighteen inches, which have been either cut by the employees of the Government or by the villagers. No company is permitted to purchase Government wood, and ordinary steamers purchasing from the villagers have to pay 2 francs a fathom for such fuel. Journeying down the Congo a few months ago, three of us carefully examined conditions at one of the wooding posts, manned by twenty-six men and ten women, most of whom had been “demanded” from the chiefs in more distant parts of the Congo, and drafted to the spot in question. Several had already served three years—the nominal term of the contract—but, without any option in the matter, their contracts had been renewed. Each of the men had to cut one fathom of wood per diem; some were paid 7 francs and others only 5 francs a month, with a 3-francs allowance for food. The maximum cost, therefore, was 10 francs for the thirty fathoms of wood cut in the month. Thus the State provides itself with wood at a fraction over threepence per fathom, for which company steamers must pay 2 francs. Under such systems not only are human liberties violated, but commerce suffers prejudice. There is not a little danger that the Belgian authorities intend giving a considerable extension to State enterprises, which in all probability will be prosecuted with this form of forced labour. The question of State railways and telegraph lines is a difficult one, both partaking of works of public utility, yet both are as a rule profit-bearing. There is the further consideration that all profits go to relieve local taxation. Given representative Government or given even an elective element in the Administration, there may be some justice in imposing this form of forced labour upon the general community, but under the autocratic systems of Crown Colony Administration, large demands for forced labour cause, not unnaturally, widespread disaffection. Fortunately British colonies are almost entirely free from the employment of such labour and to this no doubt is due the excellent management of all railway systems under British control.