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Show CONGO SLAVES ARE PRODDED AND BADLY LASHED WITH WHIPS LONDON, April 2. The. Congo Ke-form Ke-form association has forwarded to Sir Edward Gray, the Secretary for Foj--. eign Affairs, a remarkable description of the intolerable conditions prevailing in the Congo Free State, written by J. C. McLaren of Perth, from his own personal per-sonal observations. J .Mr; McLaren is a representative of the East Africa Trading company. He recently arrived in England after a long journey in which he traversed the Coa- S) Free State from Dufile on the Nile to oma on the Atlantic. I "Wherever I went," said Mr. McLaren, Mc-Laren, "during the year I was in Congo Con-go it was the same tale from every one. It was that the Government was , bad wanted everything for nothing. "One of the great grievances is the amount of foodstuffs the people are com- Felled to -supply 'without payment' to eed the different units of soldiers and their wives at the several stations." I Of the "rubber curse," as Mr. "M-Laren "M-Laren calls it, be saw many signs of the usual character. "I was in Magambo's village," he writes, "and. saw Magsmbo (a chief employed and armed with albinis and ammunition by the administration to force rubber and ivory from the surrounding sur-rounding villages) returning with his victorious army after a raid, loaded up with loot and about twenty-five prisoners. prison-ers. "It was a ghastly sight to see the prisoners prodded and lashed while staggering and falling under heavy loads. 1 |