these had been intensified and their practical solution hindered by the fine theories and high ideals of the Berlin Conference, there appeared reason for the belief that a West African Don Quixote had been charged to assault a windmill. Colonial traditions appeared to the men on the spot to be inapplicable to the Congo. There was no tax-burdened home government to rely upon for support. Nor were the African forests or the palaces and mansions of Europe crowded with philanthropists desirous of dedicating their fortunes to the welfare of the Bantu race in the distant Congo. In popular parlance, the King and his Congo were left to subsist on fine sentiments and a jug of water. If in these circumstances a colonial policy of self-support was adopted and carried out with an economic skill which in its results excites foreign envy and covetousness to-day, it should not be attributed to wrong motive, but to that of stern necessity. Concerning this formative period of early Congolese policy the recent exposition of Baron Descamps may be aptly quoted: The problem had to be solved without bringing into conflict certain elements which are difficult to assimilate, namely, the exigencies of commercial freedom as recognised by the conventions, the civilisation of the natives and their material and moral improvement, the exigencies of the life and progress of the State itself considered as the organic principle of the new political society, and finally the exigencies or rather conditions relating to the personal union of the Free State with Belgium. In the accomplishment of this complex task, the State was first inspired with the principle of a scrupulous respect for international engagements. This principle was never lost sight of, even at the critical periods of its life following on the Berlin Conference, when a _régime_ of complete exemption from import duties weighed heavily upon its economic existence. The State was also filled with the determination to faithfully respect the declaration of permanent neutrality which it made a short time after the Berlin Conference. As we have remarked elsewhere, this was an honourable action towards the Powers who were thus reassured concerning the policy and pacific autonomy of the new State. It was also an act of prudence which protected the Congo State from the solicitations of other States interested in influencing its political life.[36] [Illustration: Children of the Settlement School at Boma Praying.] [Sidenote: The State’s Policy.]