The Belgian Congo cannot be managed upon less than Uganda, therefore it should require grants-in-aid from the Imperial Exchequer for the next twenty years, of not less than £1,000,000 sterling per annum. To this, however, must be added the exceptional demands from which no colony escapes. The question, therefore, is this: Are the Belgians ready to invest a sum of twenty to thirty millions sterling in the Congo during the next twenty to twenty-five years? The Congo is thirteen times the size of Southern Nigeria; and though the density of the Congo population is considerably less, the tribes are much more widely scattered, and therefore require almost the same measure of white supervision, particularly in view of the direct taxation which everywhere prevails. There is the further consideration that many of the Belgian “officials” are to-day necessarily occupied with work which in other colonies is rightly left to the merchant. In view of these considerations a _pro rata_ white personnel would seem to be essential. In Southern Nigeria Great Britain has from 800 to 1000 white men of all grades engaged in its administration. Taking the lowest figure as a basis, the Belgium Congo, with its 900,000 square miles of territory, coupled with the varied enterprises of the administration, would require over 10,400 men, but the colonial authorities find the greatest difficulty in maintaining an official personnel of about 2000! With a few notable exceptions, the type of official on the Congo gives but little promise of any really effective and enlightened administration. Can the Belgian Government find the men which the colony requires? None can say actually what she may be able to do, although none will deny that up to the present she has failed to find either the number or the class of men vital to successful colonial government. The question the Belgians would do well to ask themselves is—whether it would not be wiser for them to administer a smaller colony properly than to continue an attempt to govern a vast region like the Congo basin, which, in the very nature of things, would be an enormous task even for the most affluent European Power. If Belgium could retain the Lower Congo, or a considerable portion of it, and transfer almost the whole of the upper regions to another Power, the indemnity she might expect to receive would, in such a case, permit of the development of the Lower Congo in a manner which would absorb all the activity that she could throw into it for generations. There are great possibilities in the Lower Congo, possibilities unprejudiced by the difficulties which obtain in the Upper Congo.