TRANSITION TO THE BELGIAN CONGO 67 
almost every year — that for 1923 being estimated at 82,- 
000,000 francs. The total debt is now about 400,000,000 
Belgian and French francs, plus £3,500,000. At current 
rates of exchange, however, the debt payable in francs is 
equivalent to only about $20,000,000, so that the currency 
depreciation has offset the war borrowings and deficits and 
left the Congo with a less onerous debt than it had before 
the war began. 
The days when wild rubber and ivory formed the chief 
resources of the Congo have gone forever. Now the palm 
kernels and palm oil exported are twenty times as valuable 
as the rubber; and the copper, gold, diamonds, and copal 
are a dozen times as valuable as the ivory. Apparently the 
country has a great future in plantation rubber, cotton, 
cocoa, and other tropical products. Katanga copper al- 
ready plays an important part in the world copper situa- 
tion, and the great mineral wealth of the colony (copper, 
tin, iron, gold, coal, diamonds, ete.) is likely to be more 
rapidly developed than the agricultural. 
The pressing needs of the Congo are population, capital, 
and means of transportation. Its 909,000 square miles 
are inhabited by about 8,500,000 natives, chiefly Bantus, 
and about 10,000 whites, including over 2000 officials and 
nearly 1400 missionaries. Commerce is largely in the hands 
of non-Belgians. English and American capital has been 
active in developing copper and diamond mines and the palm 
oil industry, and Belgian military men have openly expressed 
their fears at the “penetration” of their country by foreign- 
ers, especially British. They deplore that German interests 
no longer offset British in East Africa. Foreign capital and 
foreigners are most conspicuous in the rich mineral region of 
Katanga. This province is 9500 miles from Europe by way 
of Beira in Portuguese East Africa, but the shorter route 
via the Congo River is slower and more expensive because