It is the co-operative principle—so utterly lacking in the uncivilised native Congolese—which often inspires those governmental speculations in new countries whereby it is sought to solve the problem of sustaining the State upon its own undeveloped resources. There can be little doubt that this principle, now well recognised in the industrial world and constantly adopted and expanded in the United States and Great Britain by enlightened labour leaders and great corporations, unconsciously influenced the Belgian statesmen who framed the land and taxation laws of the Congo Free State. The civilisation of Central Africa was, and forsooth, still is, an immense task, and the State’s early attitude of welcoming _quasi_ private enterprise to co-operate with it in the development of lands which indolent native races had ravaged—first for their own immediate wants, later at the behest of adventurers and despoiling traders, whose coin was alcohol and shoddy tinsel—was not only justified in a Government seeking rational progress, but it followed the soundest principles of what the higher socialism terms community of interest. If more modern in theory, the Congo State has in practice often followed the most experienced of old-world colonisers—the Dutch and the British. Where practicable under like conditions “it imitates these experienced colonisers, without, however, following them blindly” or attaining at once what it has taken them several generations to accomplish. “Neither does it persist in methods which have been recognised as erroneous, but it alters and corrects them where possible.” Being like all governments, old or new, in savage lands or civilised, unable to reform its domestic policies at command, it seeks the betterment of its system with that gradation of movement which shall not disorganise and disrupt the structure of its statehood. Those who avowedly speak for the Congo Free State say that “its policy is essentially a work of _methodical experiment and practical adaptation_. Even when colonial science is more advanced than it is to-day, that policy will retain its _raison d’être_ and its merits.” Having considered those early causes which evolved a State land policy largely founded on the principles of co-operation and self-support, it is pertinent, at this point, to examine the theory of the State land system which has met with the criticism of commercial interests in Great Britain. [Sidenote: The State’s Land System.] The origin of the land system of the Congo Free State may be said to have assumed legal form by the official order of Sir Francis de Winton, who, it will be recalled, was appointed Governor-General of the State when Henry M. Stanley returned to Europe. The order is dated Vivi, July 1, 1885.