“You have never produced a single iota of evidence in support of this statement against the Catholic missionaries, who are doing such splendid work in the Congo territory. We characterise the statement as a gross and palpable invention, but, in that respect, it has only been on a par with the general policy of yourself and the so-called ‘Congo Reform Society’ in connection with these matters. “It has also been asserted by the secretary of the Aborigines’ Protection Society—which has been mainly responsible, with yourself and the Liverpool shippers and merchants, for working up this campaign of calumny—that the clerical party in Belgium is supporting the King in his Congo policy, irrespective of any atrocities that may be committed, because the King has agreed to support them in Belgium. This is not only a libel on Belgian Catholics and the Belgian people—who have been insolently referred to by the _Daily News_ as ‘barbarians’—but is amply disproved by the fact that the most recent exposure of your tactics, and the tactics of your society, has been made in the columns of the well-known anti-clerical paper, _The Independance Belge_, of Brussels, which has published the disclosures with reference to your bribing of a Congo official to secure evidence from him, and has amply exposed, on many occasions, the selfish and dishonest character of this anti-Congo campaign. “You have printed the grossest inventions with reference to the treatment of British natives in Congo territory. You have said that at Lagos, and in the surrounding district, if the word ‘Congo’ is mentioned to a native he will make for the bush if he is on land, and will jump into the water if he happens to be on sea, in order to escape going to the Congo! “A full and impartial inquiry made by a number of English gentlemen at Lagos, and the evidence of one hundred and seventy-five natives taken on oath, shows how baseless and unscrupulous is your statement. One English gentleman declares that ‘in a single week’s time he would undertake to send two thousand natives to the Congo, if the English Government would permit their enrolment’—the taxation being so much heavier in British territory than in Congo territory, that natives have to seek in the latter the means of earning the taxation which they are compelled to pay to the British administration. “Missionaries of all classes, Catholic and non-Catholic, have borne ample testimony to the humane and civilising influence of the Congo administration. Englishmen like Lord Mountmorres, Major Harrison, of Hull, Mr. Grenfell, Mr. Bell, Mr. Holland, Mr. Maguire, as also Mrs. French-Sheldon, Mrs. Doering, and others, have borne the most emphatic testimony to the lies and misrepresentations that have been so sedulously spread by yourself and your friends with reference to the Congo administration.