In ten years or so, when rubber starts to decline, it will be agriculture that will have to ensure our public income and our trade.

All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), 9. Boycott! The story of Edmond Stanislas van Eetvelde (1852-1925) A chaotic and multifaceted colonial career after 1890 The State Secretary for Finance of the Congo Free State always tried to promote its introduction and development by generously subsidizing initiatives by local state agents for the production of coffee, cocoa, cotton, rubber and tobacco. Even after 1895, when the rubber boom caused the Congolese treasury to overflow, van Eetvelde continued his plantation policy because he believed in the undeniable long-term benefits as opposed to the plucking of wild rubber that resulted from the Leopoldian domanial system. STENGERS, J. “Eetvelde (Van), Edmond”, o.c., 336.