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.