The Congolese kaleidoscope has revolved so swiftly since 1896, that it is with difficulty the European attitude towards the Congo Free State notoriety can be completely indicated. It would be unfair to the English people—that great, sane mass of them which sits imperturbably serene and looks on—to say that the British attitude towards the Congo is of that bitter hostility which a few hysterical Liverpool merchants and writers wish the outside world to believe. Indeed, it would appear to be part of their plan to make sufficient noise to induce the Germans, French, and Americans to attribute the agitation to the entire British public. The fact is that the severest condemnation of the anti-Congo campaign is being uttered by Britons against the _clique_ which is striving to entangle British ministers in an affair that may some day redound to England’s humiliation. The shifts have been many to which certain Liverpool merchants and their chief crier have been put to maintain a hubbub which they hope will, by accident or the logic of events, create an opening for their ulterior commercial plans. [Illustration: Native Planter’s House, near Stanley Falls.] [Illustration: Prison, with Carpenter’s Shop, at New Antwerp (Bangala).] In 1897, the services of Sir Charles Dilke were first enlisted against the Congo State. In that year it was evident to those who had previously erred in their estimate of the value of the Congo as a commercial and political asset, that the Free State would more than fulfil the early expectations of Leopold II. and Henry M. Stanley. The awakening to this fact is the genesis of the envy which enlivens Congolese history to-day. So long as Stanley sat in Parliament and avowed his confidence in the Belgians who are erecting a State upon the ruins of the slave trade, and so long as he reiterated to his colleagues on the benches there the truth of the practical difficulties in Central Africa, the campaign against the Congo State in England made little serious progress. When Stanley died, when his voice in defence of the great work which he had shared with the King of the Belgians could no longer expose the fallacies and the true motive of the despoiler, the Congophobe epidemic spread to America and became more virulent than ever. Early in 1903, a number of British merchants expressed their grievance against the French Congo in a volume by the author[48] whose active hostility against the Belgian Congo has given currency to many false statements and unjust beliefs. In the preface to the story of the _British Case in the French Congo_, this writer states that: