If God gives me that satisfaction (victory over sleeping sickness) I shall be able to present myself before His judgement-seat with the credit of having performed one of the finest acts of the century, and a legion of rescued beings will call down upon me His grace. [Quoted by E. D. Morel, Red Rubber, p. 151.]
When King Leopold took over the Congo, he announced that his purpose was purely philanthropic. Stanley, who conducted propaganda for him in England, explained how much he loved the black man, and feared that English people could not “appreciate rightly, because there are no dividends attached to it, this restless, ardent, vivifying, and expansive sentiment which seeks to extend civilizing influence among the dark places of sad-browed Africa.
” The Prince of Wales (Edward VII),
Whose help was invoked by King Leopold as early as 1876 in calling a conference to discuss “the settlement by Europeans of unexplored Africa and the b2c datasets encouragement of exploration with a view to spreading civilization,” became dubious when assured that the sole motive was philanthropy. He wrote to Sir Bartle Frere:
The question is whether the public who represent money will take the same interest that he does. Philanthropy is all very well, but unless it is practical and gives a practical result it will not find that favour in the eyes of the English public that it deserves.
Leopold’s emphasis on philanthropy served
The other Powers showed little enthusiasm for an enterprise that was represented as involving expenditure without hope of pecuniary recompense, and when he offered to bear all the expense himself, they allowed him to assume the burden (as they supposed it) on condition of his preserving freedom of religion, freedom of trade, freedom of the Press, and so on. After Arab slave-raiders, the royal philanthropist set to work to introduce orderly government into his dominions. Being thoroughly up-to-date, he established a system of State Socialism.