One of the counts in the complaint by certain perfervid pamphleteers in Great Britain against King Leopold is that there is no freedom of commerce in that part of the Congo Basin occupied by the Free State. Freedom of Commerce under the definition of such persons is the indiscriminate right of traders and adventurers, and purveyors of arms and spirituous liquors, to swoop down on the State and private lands of the Congo, incite the native to invade the forest, steal rubber product and sell it to the trader at the latter’s price. One need not dwell upon the preposterous nature of that transparent scheme of commercial freedom. Private property is nowhere open to unlawful invasion. Public property is not open to the spoliation of adventurers and vandals. The 5000 tons of rubber gathered by the several industrial forces at work in the Congo can be purchased by traders as well at Matadi as at Stanley Pool, at Boma as well as at Antwerp, at a proper price. If the freedom of commerce defined by Congophobes were permitted to prevail in any civilised or uncivilised country in the world, anarchy and tribal wars would ensue, all rights of property would be violated, and the larcenous proclivities of the African Negro would be encouraged. In the case of the Congo, a reign of terror would decimate the native population, and denude the forests which the wise laws of the State endeavour to preserve. Upon their ruins the “savagery” of the white man would have succeeded that of the black. As already indicated, Congo law very properly forbids invaders of the State from buying the product of private property from any one except the owner. In that respect it does not depart from the law of every other country. The desire of adventurers to buy rubber and ivory direct from the natives is not sufficient reason for permitting the latter to trespass upon private property for the purpose of stealing its product. Once establish a traffic on these lines, and you put a premium on the crime of theft, and pit the spear of every native against his brother in their rubber-hunting areas. The difference between the Congo system of colonisation and those of its principal critic is the difference between a definite State policy which, having the land and its resources for its material basis, applies humane measures for enforcing its development for the benefit and civilisation of the native, and the permanent constitution of the State, and a policy the baneful influence and unprogressive operation of which can be observed in the protectorates and colonies of one of its neighbours, where the budgets are to a large degree sustained by the importation of alcohol as a beverage—a “civilising influence” which, to the honour of the Belgians, is almost entirely excluded from the Congo Free State....