60
EUROPE AND AFRICA
by assuming the risks, responsibilities, and expense of man-
aging a great and difficult colonial enterprise, would reap
the reward of the arduous labors of King Leopold and his
associates, or would let the Congo go by default to France,
to whom a first lien on the territory had been given by trea-
ties in April, 1884, and February, 1895. Two alternatives
were open to the Belgian authorities. They could take over
the colony and administer it in the name of the signatory
powers of the Berlin Act of 1885 and on the precise terms
of that act, primarily for the benefit and development of the
native peoples, and secondarily for whatever profits in trade
might accrue to Belgium from the transaction. Or they
could administer the Congo as a government territory in
their own way and primarily for their own purposes, giving
to the natives whatever protection lay in their power.
Few of the Belgian statesmen ever considered the first
alternative seriously. The financial and commercial inter-
ests of Belgium in the Congo were already too extensive and
the future burdens too heavy to permit undertaking any such
utopian and philanthropic task. They were, moreover, jeal-
ous of outside interests and opposed to any foreign inter-
ference; and it was generally believed that annexation by
Belgium put an end to any rights of assistance or interfer-
ence that the Act of 1885 may have given to the powers.
The Belgian leaders agreed with the writer in the Indépend-
ence Belge of February 24, 1908, that the Congo could
not “be an international colony administered by Belgium;
it must be nothing more or less than a Belgian colony, for
whose administration and profitable working Belgium alone
shall be responsible.” 1
Belgium should have annexed the Congo in 1901; and if
she had done so, she would have gained the confidence of
the powers immediately, and saved herself considerable criti-
1 The Times (London), February 26, 1908.