TRANSITION TO THE BELGIAN CONGO 63 
rency; the creation of a new system of land tenure by which 
the natives may become landowners and encouraged to take 
up land; the establishment of a more equitable and efficient 
system of justice, assuring an impartial and exact justice to 
all; and the preservation of the freedom of trade so that 
“traders and settlers of all nationalities [may] secure un- 
occupied tracts of land, needed for the prosecution and de- 
velopment of peaceful commerce, at reasonable prices in 
any part of the Congo.” 
But Belgium was severely handicapped by her lack of ex- 
perience in colonization. She had practically everything to 
learn and had to proceed slowly and with caution. The 
political spirit of the Belgian people was essentially con- 
servative and somewhat provincial; and her entrance upon 
the untried field of international politics was necessarily 
accompanied by various readjustments, to meet the new 
international relations and obligations. One most serious 
problem was the finding of experienced and trained men suf- 
ficient to administer honestly, properly, and efficiently their 
new and vast territory. “The Belgian people as a whole are 
not in the least convinced that Belgium wants a colony at 
all,” wrote the Brussels correspondent of the London Times 
on August 22, 1908. “The average Belgian is in tempera- 
ment essentially a stay-at-home. In fact, the difficulty of 
getting good men to expatriate themselves, even for the sake 
of better pay and prospects than the miserably inadequate 
terms hitherto offered, is recognized as one of the most 
serious problems confronting the future administration of 
the colony.” 
The Belgian Government entered earnestly upon the work 
of reform in its new colony. M. Renkin, the new Colonial 
Minister, prepared a set of reform measures by which the 
administration of the country would be materially improved, 
the principle of free trade established (including the right of