To provide a just and equitable process for giving effect to the civil laws of a savage country requires an administrant force of exceptional powers, of rare patience, and of wide sympathies. Highly civilised communities largely govern themselves by the aggregate contribution and example of all orderly persons. The very momentum of their civilisation and the habits and tendencies of a cultured people conduce to the observance of law and the tranquillity of the social life to which the law applies. Rules of State and municipal procedure for the government of European countries have, by use and the experience of time, long ago attained to an automatic operation. The social phenomena of all civilised communities are well established, and they form part of that large body of academic theory called social science. The development of human society has its constitution and its philosophy, yet those who are charged, by a duty arising from exceptional circumstances, to apply social and political principles to savage tribes distantly situated from all civilising contact with human beings of superior attainment, are charged with a task of unknown and multiform difficulty. [Illustration: Bishop’s Palace at Baudouinville (Oriental Province).] The characteristic thoroughness with which the Belgians have established their administrative machinery in the Congo Free State is apparent in the latest report (July, 1904) of Vice-Governor-General Fuchs, the acting head of that Government. Monsieur Fuchs has had twenty years’ experience in Central Africa. He is, perhaps, the best-qualified living colonial official dealing with the black races of the African Continent. The great progress of the country he governs, and the moral and material betterment of the tribes which thrive under his liberal rule, are astonishingly revealed in the report from which the following quotations are made: The development of the State administration is attested in a general way by the ever-increasing number of Posts of different kinds that are in operation in its territories. Thus there are at the present time 233 Posts and Stations, all of them under the command of white men, scattered over the 14 districts. The European staff attached to the services of the districts mentioned is distributed as follows: Organic Staff 294 Service of Justice 57 Administrative Service 115 Medical Service 27 Service of Public Works 92 Service of Agriculture 89 Service of Finance 74 The Public Force 490 Service of the Marine 166 Various 20 ———— Total 1424 The number of blacks attached to the different services of the districts is about 20,000 men.