EUROPE AND AFRICA 
the burden fell on the honest and the timid. Unfortu- 
nately the matter did not end here. The demands of the 
Government increased year by year; and, when they were 
ignored, severe punishments were meted out to chiefs and 
villages. “It is the incessant and varying requirements 
from the people on the part of the representatives of the 
Government that constitute in my opinion a grave danger 
for the future of the State,” to quote again the words of 
Grenfell — the mildest critic of the Congo administra- 
tion. 
Conditions in the districts under the concessionnaire com- 
panies, to whom the Government had given political powers 
as well as commercial rights, were even worse, — particu- 
larly on the domains of the Anglo-Belgian Indiarubber 
Company and the “Société Anversoise du Commerce au 
Congo.” And as time went on, the pressure on the natives 
steadily increased until whole districts were depopulated or 
raised to the verge of revolt. Inferior officers were seldom 
called to account by their superiors as long as the proper 
returns came in; and the depredations of these men in more 
than one instance became notorious. The terrible cruelties 
perpetrated upon the inhabitants went unpunished to a large 
degree, because the officials were afraid to punish the sol- 
diers. Chieftains were slain; men and boys horribly mu- 
tilated; villages burned; and men, women, and children 
killed, because a certain number of laborers were not fur- 
nished, the taxes not paid, or the required amount of rubber 
had not been brought in. Armed sentries were stationed 
in numerous villages to enforce the payment of the tithes 
and to compel the gathering of the native products. Beat- 
ings and imprisonments were frequent; and “it is very evi- 
dent,” wrote Consul Nightingale to Sir Edward Grey as 
late as 1906, “that an idea prevails that the native is as 
much part and parcel of the concessionary Companies’ 
16