24 
EUROPE AND AFRICA 
great negro state in the basin of the Congo, which would 
afford adequate protection to the harassed and weaker ele- 
ments of the population, suppress such vicious and barbaric 
customs as cannibalism, and open the country to mission- 
aries, to trade, and to European civilization. The first 
Commissioner, appointed in July, 1883, to rule the district 
was the liberal-minded Sir Frederic Goldsmid. If it had not 
been for the imperative call of Egypt, General Gordon would 
have succeeded him in 1884; but his place was taken by 
another able British officer, Sir Francis de Winton, who 
served as the first Administrator-General of the Congo 
State from June, 1884, to December, 1885. 
It was not to be expected that this undertaking — so vast 
and so costly — could long remain solely upon a philan- 
thropic basis. The sum raised by the Comité d'Etudes was 
insignificant; and King Leopold himself was forced, not 
only to carry a large part of the expense from 1879 to 1890, 
furnishing from $100,000 to $200,000 yearly, but to con- 
tinue his support thereafter until he had contributed ap- 
proximately $5,000,000. To make the enterprise really 
pay its way, it was therefore necessary to fall back upon 
certain commercial features which were inseparably con- 
nected with the progress of the whole undertaking. In 
1882 the Association was transformed into a corporation 
called the “International Association of the Congo,” with 
King Leopold as president; an Association flag was adopted; 
and an energetic and systematic attempt was made to de- 
velop the trade of the Congo Basin. “I have never ceased 
to call the attention of my countrymen to the necessity of 
turning their attention to countries across the seas,” wrote 
King Leopold to M. Beernaert in 1889. “It isin serving the 
cause of humanity and progress that peoples of the second 
class appear useful members of the great family of nations. 
More than any other, a manufacturing and commercial