“Gentlemen,” said his Majesty, “permit me to thank you warmly for the amiable promptness with which you have been kind enough to come here at my invitation. Besides the satisfaction that I shall have in hearing you discuss here the problems in the solution of which we are interested, I experience the liveliest sense of pleasure in meeting the distinguished men whose works and valorous efforts on behalf of civilisation I have followed for many years. [Illustration: Elephant Farm on the Bomokandi.] “The subject which brings us together to-day is one that deserves in the highest degree to engage the attention of the friends of humanity. To open to civilisation the only part of the globe where it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness enshrouding entire populations, that is, if I may venture to say so, a crusade worthy of this century of progress; and I am happy to discover how much public sentiment is in favour of its accomplishment. The current is with us. “Gentlemen, among those who have most closely studied Africa, a good many have been led to think that there would be advantage to the common object they pursue if they could be brought together for the purpose of conference with the object of regulating the march, combining the efforts, deriving some profit from all circumstances, and from all resources, and finally, in order to avoid doing the same work twice over. “It has appeared to me that Belgium, a central and a neutral state, would be a spot well chosen for such a reunion, and it is this view which has emboldened me to call you all here, to my home, for the little Conference that I have the great satisfaction of opening to-day. Is it necessary for me to say to you that in inviting you I have not been guided by egotistic views? No, gentlemen; if Belgium is small, she is happy and satisfied with her lot. I have no other ambition but to serve her well. But I will not go so far as to declare that I should be insensible to the honour which would result for my country if an important forward movement in a question which will mark our epoch should be dated from Brussels. I should be happy that Brussels should become in some way the headquarters of this civilising movement. “I have, then, allowed myself to believe that it would be convenient to you to come together to discuss and to specify, with the authority belonging to you, the means to be employed in order to plant definitely the standard of civilisation on the soil of Central Africa, to agree as to what should be done to interest the public in your noble enterprise, and to induce it to support you with its money. For, gentlemen, in works of this kind it is the concurrence of the greater number that makes success; it is the sympathy of the masses which it is necessary to solicit, and to know how to obtain.