King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Author:Adam Hochschild [Hochschild, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Morel also exposed the web of deceptions, large and small, continually spun by Leopold and his allies. Little escaped him. For example, the king went to great lengths to cultivate Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid, a prominent British Baptist, newspaper owner, and former member of Parliament. Leopold invited Gilzean Reid to the Royal Palace several times, gave him the Order of Leopold, and made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Crown. In return, Gilzean Reid led a delegation from the Baptist Missionary Society to Brussels in 1903. There, at a luncheon with the king and other prominent Belgians, the society presented a "memorial of thanks" voicing the hope that "the peoples of the Congo may ever have the advantage of just and upright rule." Morel swiftly pointed out in print that when Gilzean Read passed the news on to the London Morning Post, he rewrote the Baptist message to express to the king the hope that "the peoples of the Congo State may realise increasingly the advantages of your enlightened rule."

***

Morel's attacks soon drew a response from the Royal Palace. One evening in London, Sir Alfred Jones, Morel's former boss, invited Morel to a dinner party. The two men's relations were, to say the least, strained, but at the meal all was smiles, and, Morel writes, "the wines were choice and copious." After dinner, Jones and the other guests retired, leaving Morel alone with a visiting Antwerp shipping executive named Aerts, who made it clear that he was acting as Leopold's representative.

After one last attempt to convince Morel that the king meant well and that reforms were in the offing, the visitor took, as Morel describes it, a different tack (the ellipsis is in the original):

What were the Congo natives to me? Of what use this pursuit of an unrealisable ideal? I was a young man. I had a family—yes? I was running serious risks. And then, a delicately, very delicately veiled suggestion that my permanent interests would be better served if.... "A bribe?" Oh! dear, no, nothing so vulgar, so demeaning. But there were always means of arranging these things. Everything could be arranged with honour to all sides. It was a most entertaining interview, and lasted until a very late hour. "So nothing will shake your determination?" "I fear not." We parted with mutual smiles. But my companion, I thought, was a little ruffled. For my part I enjoyed myself most thoroughly.

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