Forestry and Mining Company one-half of the profits go to Leopold, one-fourth to Belgians, and the remaining fourth to the Americans.  Of the profits of the American Congo Company, Leopold is entitled to one-half and the Americans to the other half.  This company was one originally organized to exploit a new method of manufacturing crude rubber from the plant.  The company was taken over by Thomas F. Ryan and his associates.  Back of both companies are the Guggenheims, who are to perform the actual work in the mines and in the rubber plantation.  Early in March a large number of miners and engineers were selected by John Hays Hammond, the chief engineer of the Guggenheim Exploration Companies, and A. Chester Beatty, and were sent to explore the territory granted in the mining concession.  Another force of experts are soon to follow.  The legal representative of the syndicates has stated that in the Congo they intend to move “on commercial lines.”  By that we take it they mean they will give the native a proper price for his labor; and instead of offering “bonuses” and “commissions” to their white employees will pay them living wages.  The exact terms of the concessions are wrapped in mystery.  Some say the territories ceded to the concessionaires are to be governed by them, policed by them, and that within the boundaries of these concessions the Americans are to have absolute control.  If this be so the syndicates are entering upon an experiment which for Americans is almost without precedent.  They will be virtually what in England is called a chartered company, with the difference that the Englishmen receive their charter from their own government, while the charter under which the Americans will act will be granted by a foreign Power, and for what they may do in the Congo their own government could not hold them responsible.  They are answerable only to the Power that issued the charter; and that Power is the just, the humane, the merciful Leopold.

The history of the early days of chartered companies in Africa, notoriously those of the Congo, Northern Nigeria, Rhodesia, and German Central Africa does not make pleasant reading.  But until the Americans in the Congo have made this experiment, it would be most unfair (except that the company they choose to keep leaves them open to suspicion) not to give them the benefit of the doubt.  One can at least say for them that they seem to be absolutely ignorant of the difficulties that lie before them.  At least that is true of all of them to whom I have talked.

The attorney of the Rubber Company when interviewed by a representative of a New York paper is reported to have said:  “We have purchased a privilege from a Sovereign State and propose to operate it along purely commercial lines.  With King Leopold’s management of Congo affairs in the past, or, with what he may do in an administrative way in the future, we have absolutely nothing to do.”  The italics are mine.