Jackson Advocate

Where The Congo's Hope Lies

The expected arrival here this morning of Premier Patrice Lumumba of the newly fledged Republic of the Congo follows quickly after the announcement of a grandiose American project to invest $2 billion in Congolese enterprises. Most of us may want to know more about these proposals before throwing up our hats. It is clear, however, that what the Congo valley needs is a great deal of capital and almost the entire technological equipment that a modern state should have.

The show streets of Leopoldville are modern enough to suit anybody. Yet they are a sort of fringe to an area about one-third as large as the United States and including many inhabitants who are living almost as primitive a life today as they were when Stanley went up the Congo 85 years ago.

The Belgians added something to the average well-being of the nearly 14,000,000 Congolese. Yet even today only one-half of the people can read and write, only 16 have graduated from universities or colleges and there are no native Congolese doctors, lawyers or engineers. The country might profit by a power dam on the lower Congo, but what it needs immediately is better sanitation, hospitals, rural medical services, a school system which would find and develop individual talents, and especially training in how to run a government. Premier Lumumba, who is warmly welcome here on the errand which brings him, must be keenly aware of the enormous difficulties of administering a country which is said to have two hundred tribes, speaking more than four hundred dialects.

There is much that the United Nations can do not merely to bring order but also in the fields of food supply, health and finance. The bloody and disorderly early days of the new republic need not be an evil augury for the future.

FROM: The New York Times.