A Decree of the Sovereign will presently request all non-natives who now possess, by any right whatever, land situated within the territory of the Congo Free State, to make an official declaration, describing the land in question, and submitting their titles to be examined and approved by the Government. The object of the said Decree will be to secure, in the prescribed form, the acknowledgment of acquired rights, and to make the regular organisation of land property in the said State possible in the near future. In the meantime, with a view to avoiding disputes and abuses, the Governor-General, duly authorised by the Sovereign, orders as follows: ARTICLE 1. Dating from the publication of the present proclamation, no contract or agreement with the natives for the occupation of portions of the land will be acknowledged or protected by the Government, unless the said contract or agreement has been made in the presence of a public official, commissioned by the Governor-General, and according to the rules laid down by him in each particular case. ARTICLE 2. No one has right to occupy without title any vacant land, nor to dispossess the natives from their land; all vacant land must be considered as belonging to the State. [Sidenote: State Protects Lands of Natives.] This order provided for the official recognition of title to land appropriated by foreigners before July 1, 1885; land occupied up to the same date by natives, and land which, having been neither occupied by natives nor appropriated by foreigners, was declared to be the property of the State. Particular emphasis was given to the clause protecting the native in his occupation of land whereon his industry had created improvement, where he lived in the peaceful pursuits common to his tribe. [Illustration: Mission of the White Fathers, Tanganyika.] As the appropriation by the State of vacant lands in the Congo has inspired many of the specious arguments which have lately emanated from England alone and more particularly from the _claque_ of the Congo Reform Association in Liverpool, it may be opportune to consider first what the Belgians have said in justification of a course which every student of political history knows has been followed by all civilised States. In his essay, _New Africa_, Baron Descamps briefly analyses the theory of the State’s unquestionable property in all vacant lands within its territory: Territory is that part of the globe over which a State exercises its sovereign rights; it is the material basis of sovereign influence.