"The Congo State," said M. Lorand, "has not only become the greatest vendor of ivory and rubber in the world, but has been enabled with its surplus revenues to conduct enterprises in China and elsewhere, to purchase property in Belgium, and concessions at Hankow." Though there was no immediate result from the agitation in the Belgian House, the efforts of English reformers made it necessary to take some action in regard to the complaints. Leopold accordingly appointed a Commission of Inquiry, composed of a Belgian, an Italian and a Swiss, all able men. They went out to the Congo, where they examined a multitude of witnesses, and at the end of a year their conclusions were published. In this report they practically reiterated--though in diplomatic language--all the charges of the reformers. Finally, in 1908, this vast African dependency was annexed to Belgium, which secured complete parliamentary control over the whole region. The next year, Prince, now King, Albert and the Colonial Minister, M. Renkin, visited the Congo State, entering it from opposite sides, and reform work was soon inaugurated. Forced labour was suppressed, payments to the natives were made in money, and several zones were opened up to free trade. The African colony pays its own expenses to-day, but it contributes little money to Belgium. King Albert refused to receive an annuity from its revenues, and that money has been used as a pension fund for those who have served well in the Congo. In the early days many Belgians went to the Congo to escape debt; today, they pass examinations, and, if fitted for the positions, are given good salaries. As the climate is very trying for whites, and the deadly sleeping sickness still exists, carried by the tsetse fly, the number of Belgians there, from latest accounts, is only one thousand six hundred. This includes over three hundred priests. No men from the larger countries of Europe are wanted in the service of the State, but there are some fifty Swedes, Americans, Swiss and Italians among the officials. The justices of the courts are of mixed nationality, but the most important civil and military positions are kept for Belgians. Boma, the capital of the Congo State, is now a flourishing town, with several hundred European houses, a Governor's palace, the Palace of Justice, and other government buildings, both Protestant and Catholic churches, a Red Cross hospital, and a telegraphic service to the interior. [Illustration: KING ALBERT.] A large part of Leopold's revenue from the Congo was expended in beautifying Brussels and doing over both the royal palaces. The Congo Museum, with its fine park and drives, the Colonial School, and the Cinquantenaire Museum, erected to commemorate fifty years of Belgian nationality, with its splendid Arch of Triumph, were all built by this means.