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Edmund Dene Morel

George Edmond Morel de Ville (Paris, 15th July 1873, Devonshire, 12th November, 1924), better known as Edmund Dene Morel (anglicised form of his name), was an Anglo - French journalist and politician. He is expecially noted for his campaign against atrocities in Congo Free State which was the object of a well-received recent book (King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild). He lead this campaign from newspapers such as the West African Mail, which he also edited, and founded with the collaboration of Roger Casement the Congo Reform Association . He played a large role in British pacifist movement during the First World War, participating in the foundation and becoming secretary of the Union of Democratic Control . On this occasion he broke with the Liberal Party, and after the war he joined the Independent Labour Party. He died of a heart attack.

Contents

Formation

E.D. Morel (as he usually abridged his name) was the son of Edmund Morel de Ville, a French civil servant of low rank who died when the child was only four. His mother, Emmeline de Horne, was British. She was member of the Society of Friends and probably had a major influence on the development of Edmund's political ideas. Morel studied in England but at the age of fifteen was forced to leave school because his mother was sick. They definitively left France and settled in Liverpool, where Morel found a job at the Elder Dempster, a shipping firm.

Working for the Elder Dempster, which had connections with Africa, Morel began to be interested in that continent. His growing knowledge of African affairs granted him the admiration of his superiors and enabled to write articles on trade with Africa in the British Press by 1893. His vision of Africa was influenced by the books of Mary Kingsley, an English traveller and writer that showed in her book a sympathy for the African people and a respect for different cultures that was very rare at the time. At the beginning of the 20th century journalism became his main activity, though this was not the reason that he quit Elder Dempster in 1902.

The Congo campaign

Elder Dempster had a shipping contract with the Congo Free State (CFS) for the connection between Antwerp and Boma. The Congo Free State was a personal colony of Leopold II of Belgium. Due to his knowledge of French language Morel was often sent in Belgium where he was able to view the internal accounts of the CFS. At the time groups such the Aborigen Protection Society had started a campaign against alleged atrocities in Congo. Morel, who at the beginning had no bias against the CFS, changed his mind after examining the actual commercial traffic between Belgium and the Congo.

Morel realized that the ships leaving Belgium for the Congo carried only guns, gunpowder and explosives, and no commercial goods, while they came back full of rich products such as raw rubber and ivory. He understood that the State had created a forced labour system of huge dimensions and that it maintained it by creating an atmosphere of terror and oppression. In 1900 Morel began his campaign with a series of articles in the weekly magazine Speaker. In 1902 he quit Elder Dempester and became a full-time journalist, first finding a job in the editing of a recently founded periodical, West Africa, then founding in 1903 his own magazine, the West African Mail, with the collaboration of John Holt, a bussinessman and a friend of Mary Kingsley that feared the application of the Congo Free State system upon the rest of the West Africa. In this period Morel published several pamphlets and his first book, Affairs of West Africa.

In 1903 the British House of Commons passed a resolution about the Congo. Subsequently the British consul in Congo, Roger Casement, was sent for an inspection. His report, that confirmed the accusations of Morel, was issued in 1904 and made a considerable impact. Morel met Casement just before the publication of the report and he understood that he had found the ally he was looking for. Casement convinced Morel to establish an Association for the Congo campaign, that was called the Congo Reform Association . A section of the Congo Reform Association was established as far away as the United States.

The Congo Reform Association achieved the support of famous writers such as Joseph Conrad (whose Heart of Darkness was inspired by a voyage to Belgian Congo), Anatole France, Arthur Conan Doyle and Mark Twain. Conan Doyle wrote The Crime of the Congo in 1908, while Mark Twain gave the most famous contribution with King Leopold's Soliloquy.

Morel's best allies were perhaps the missionairies that furnished him eyewitness accounts and photographs of the atrocities, such as the Americans William Morrison and William Sheppard or the British John Harris and Alice Harris. The chocolate millionaire William Cadbury , a quaker, was one of his main contributors. The American civil-rights activist Booker T. Washington participated in the campaign. The French journalist Pierre Mille wrote a book with Morel, while the Belgian socialist leader Emile Vandervelde sent him copies of Belgian parliamentary debates. Morel had secret connections with some agents of the Congo Free State. Even the Church of England and American religious groups backed him.

In 1905 the movement won a victory when a Commission of Enquiry, instituted by King Leopold himself, substantially confirmed the accusations made about the colonial administration. In 1908 the Congo was annexed to Belgium and put under the suvereignity of the Belgian Parliament. Despite this, Morel refused to declare an end to the campaign until 1912 because he wanted to see actual changes in the situation of the country.

Morel's pacifism and the Union of Democratic Control

On 1912 Morel joined the Liberal Party and became its prospective parliamentary candidate in Birkenhead. Yet on the same year he published a book, Morocco and diplomacy (reissued in 1915 as Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy), which announced a new evolution of his polical view, blaming Great Britain and France for their behaviour during the Moroccan crisis of 1905 and 1911 and criticising secretive diplomacy.

His differences with the Liberal Party came to light with the start of the First World War, a war that Morel strongly opposed. He harshly criticised the government for having driven British citizens into a tragic conflict with the aim of gaining territorial advantages established in secret treaties.

Morel was forced to resign his candidature and he founded with three other politicians, the former member of the government Charles Trevelyan, Norman Angell and Ramsay MacDonald the Union of Democratic Control (UDC). The UDC had three main objectives: (1) that in future to prevent secret diplomacy there should be parliamentary control over foreign policy; (2) there should be negotiations after the war with other democratic European countries in an attempt to form an organisation to help prevent future conflicts; (3) that at the end of the war the peace terms should neither humiliate the defeated nation nor artificially rearrange frontiers as this might provide a cause for future wars.

The Union of Democratic Control became the most important of all the anti-war organizations in Britain, counting in 1917 650,000 members. Morel became its secretary and treasurer. His political courage was praised by people as Bertrand Russel and the writer Romain Rolland, but its leading role in the pacifist movement exposed him to very violent attacks lead by the pro-war press. He was pictured as an agent of Germany on the Daily Express, a newspaper that also listed details of future UDC meetings and encouraged its readers to go and break-up them up. The accuses gained some credibility when Roger Casement, that was known as a friend and supporter of Morel, was executed for treason (he had took contact with the Germans to look for support for Irish nationalism). Morel became even victim of physical assaults.

While the secret services had to recognize that the UDC was not a revolutionary body and didn't carry illegal actions, the British government looked for a pretest to arrest Morel. On the 22nd August, 1917 Morel's house was searched and evidence was discovered that he had sent a UDC pamphlet to Romain Rolland in Switzerland, a neutral country. This was a technical violation of the war legislation. Morel was sentenced to six months of prison. The conditions in the Pentonville Prison where very hard. Morel's health was seriously damaged. Bertrand Russel described his condition at his release:

His hair is completely white (there was hardly a tinge of white before) when he first came out, he collapsed completely, physically and mentally, largely as the result of insufficient food. He says one only gets three quarters of an hour reading in the whole day - the rest of the time is spent on prison work, etc.

Labourist MP

After the war British socialists praised Morel for his opposition to the war. He decided to join the Independent Labour Party, explaing his decision to a friend in this way:

I have long been gravitating towards the Socialist position - of course there is Socialism and Socialism, and mine is of the reasonable and moderate kind. When I look over my public efforts through the years, it seems to me that I have been a Socialist all my life. So far as any Party can express what appears to me to be the country's needs, the ILP approximates nearer to my outlook that any other, although I still look forward to and hope for the day when all really progressive forces can unite under the title of the Democratic Party. But Liberalism as represented by both wings - the Lloyd George wing, and the Asquith wing, is right outside my outlook now.

Morel severely criticised the Treaty of Versailles warning that it would lead to another war. In 1922 the Labour Party chose Morel as its candidate at Dundee. His rival, the Liberal Party candidate, was Winston Churchill, that had been even member of the war time government. Morel had the satisfaction to defeat him.

Morel didn't give up his career of journalist, becoming director of the magazine Foreign Affairs which became the most authoritative voice of English left about foreign politics.

When Ramsay MacDonald became Prime Minister in 1924, some people expected Morel to become Foreign Secretary in the new government. Morel was deeply disappointed when MacDonald, took the unusual decision to become himself Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister, considering him too controversial for a government that depended by the support of the liberals. MacDonald proposed Morel for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the Times criticised the decision, saying that Morel attitude during the war had "shocked" many people. Edmund Dene Morel never knew that he hadn't received the Prize. He died of a heart attack on 12th November, 1924.

Books published

  • Affairs of West Africa (1902)
  • The British Case in French Congo
  • King Leopold's Rule in Africa
  • Red Rubber – The story of the rubber slave trade that flourished in Congo in the year of grace 1906 (1906)
  • Great Britain and the Congo
  • Nigeria
  • Morocco and Diplomacy (1912) (reissued as Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy in 1915)
  • Truth and the War
  • Africa and the Peace of Europe
  • The Black Man's Burden
  • Thoughts on the War
  • The Peace, and Prison
  • Pre-War Diplomacy
  • Diplomacy Revealed

See also

Last updated: 05-27-2005 03:57:33
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