Hello, chaps. I’m having a slight problem with your admirable site; the page I get from it appears to be stuck at August the 16th. Any idea what I can do about it?

Editors note: our site is fine, you just need to clear your browser cache.

In the Congo there were plenty of tribesmen he could hire who were prepared to do anything to “get the job done”.

Of course these tribesmen had robbed, raped and murdered before Leopold’s representatives turned up, and continued to do so after the Beligums left.

Indeed about the only time they did not was when the Congo was under the direct rule of the Belgium Parliament – from 1908 to 1960.

But modern people do not like to be informed of this.

However, the Belgium government did carry on the policy of “developing” the Congo.

Modern weapons may not be needed for mass murder (cutting tools can be used to kill hundreds of thousands – as has often be shown in history), but roads and railways are a useful way of getting large numbers of people through the jungle.

And getting large numbers of people through the jungle is not always a good thing.

Now is the transport of goods always a good thing – for example it may be a matter of moving plunder to support an expanded city mob population.

The “Little Englanders” argued against imperialism on the grounds that it both tended to make a loss (which British colonies normally did – perhaps because the British, contrary to what is now taught, tended not to plunder after an area was under Imperial control) and because traditional Chiefs would tend to govern best than falsely Westernized Africans.

In spite of the great work of men like Lord Lugard (ignored or attacked today) the Little Englanders were most likely correct.

Although Lugard and others would have said “if we do not take over, someone like Leopold will”.

That may be true for Britain’s “Prostitutional Monarchy’ but not here; the Prez gets two terms and hits the road.

If the foreign aid isn’t getting to the people, what’s the point anyway (not to mention that it’s our money our politicians are giving away)?