The other measures of organisation which have been passed, the formal prohibition to establish posts commanded by black officers, or to confide military operations to them, and finally forbidding the practice of taking sub-officers from their military duties to employ them as chiefs of stations, are of a nature to make us hope that very soon our public force will constitute a body in which we may have complete confidence. [Illustration: Uelle Chief and his Wives, Van Kerckhovenville.] [Illustration: Port of Leopoldville. Natives at Work.] In February, 1904, I thought it my duty to point out to the Government the manner in which instruction was given in the camps, and to draw its attention to the necessity that there would be to engage quickly a superior officer entrusted more especially with the mission of seeing to the higher direction and the general control of all the orders issued concerning the Public Force. The Government, which had also occupied itself with the question, has confided this high employment to a superior officer who will be entrusted with the command of the Public Force. The Government has resolved to send, at the same time three or four officers of the grade of commandant to be attached to the staff of the Public Force, and whom the commander will be able to appoint to exercise constant control over the companies and camps. It is right to recall the fact that military service is so far from constituting a laborious servitude for those subjected to it, by virtue of the organic law of conscription, that voluntary engagements increase from year to year. Besides, the instructions of the Government encourage this state of mind by improving the well-being of the soldier from the triple point of view of habitation, food, and clothing. And they are not only natives of Congolese territory, properly speaking, who seek there military employment; numerous Africans coming from the English colonies of the West Coast solicit engagement at Boma. The table (on page 174) of the engagements of men, natives of the coast and British subjects, is characteristic in this respect. The multiplicity of voluntary enrolments will gradually remove, from the absolutely indispensable law of conscription, what might seem rigorous, particularly in the eyes of people not yet thoroughly acquainted with civilisation, and with the idea of the necessity of public order. It is nevertheless important to note that the efforts attempted with the view of nationalising the police forces are being crowned more and more with success. The State can now renounce the assistance, elsewhere advantageous, of foreign mercenaries, thanks to the methodical, extensive, and wise application of the militia law, and especially to the considerable increase in the number of national volunteers. But there