I have, therefore, had considerable opportunity on the spot of learning the instructions which the Special Committee give their officials, and how those instructions are carried out. I myself and many members of my expedition have become fairly intimate with the native inhabitants of large portions of this district, and have from time to time employed as carriers and miners several hundred labourers. That the natives of this country had never suffered ill-treatment from white men was evident to me from the time I entered the country. They showed no hesitation in working for my expedition and in bringing quantities of food to sell, and always seemed quite confident that fair payment would be given, both for labour and food. I have lived for many years in parts of Africa in which the native inhabitants were for the first time coming under the influence of European government, and where conditions rendered the aid of such government by native troops necessary. It is almost impossible constantly to restrain the tendency to oppress and ill-treat his less powerful countrymen which is inherent in the native soldier, and I do not believe that it ever happens that the advent of that form of government is unaccompanied by acts of injustice and oppression. Generally there is a constant effort on the part of the European officer to prevent such acts and punish offenders. My experience is that this is especially the case in the district of Katanga. The regulations of the Special Committee provide that no armed parties of soldiers should travel or patrol without a European officer. Native soldiers are not allowed to enter villages alone, and weekly markets are held at which a European official buys food for his soldiers from the neighbouring villages, so endeavouring to do away as far as possible with direct dealing between the soldier and the people. My experience of the last two years has convinced me that in the district of Katanga at any rate the Belgian officials endeavour to treat the Central African native with justice and leniency, and in as great a degree as officials of any other nation look on him as a human being, with a perfect right to sell his labour and his food on terms satisfactory to himself. When I first entered the Congo, at the time that the officials of the Special Committee were establishing their government, and before I had come into personal contact with them, I found some armed natives who posed as soldiers of the Belgian Government, and who lived more or less the life of robbers, raiding and stealing wherever they went. The natives believed that these men were the authorised police of the European Administration, whose white officials they had not yet seen, and members of my expedition reported to me on the shocking behaviour of the Belgian Askari. I later learnt the complete mistake we had made in believing these men to be Government