Atlanta Daily World

Representative Bolton Finds Health Conditions Low In Congo

ELIZABETHVILLE, Belgian Congo-(NNPA)-Representative Frances P. Bolton, Republican of Ohio, found conditions of health, housing and education very low in the southeastern part of the Belgian Congo.

Continuing her 20,000-mile Congressional survey of Africa, Mrs. Bolton, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, flew south from the Equator to the southernmost "toe" of the Belgian Congo, under which lies an extremely rich belt of copper ore.

The capital of the area, Elizabethville, was founded in 1910 and named for the Queen of Belgium, the wife of King Albert I.

Mrs. Bolton and her party were met at the airport by the Provincial Secretary, Alphonso De Valkeneer and his wife. Of her visit she said:

"After a short tour of the residential part of the city, I call on the Rev. M. D. Persons, head of the American Methodist Mission. Although here only since 1944, the Methodists have made the excellent progress.

"In Elizabethville there are five missionaries from the Division of World Missions and five women from the Women's Division of Christian Service. Rev. Persons showed me the school for boys and girls, classrooms for sewing and cooking, a large center with classrooms and clubrooms, a library and offices.

"This is only part of the Methodists' Southern Congo Conference in which fifty-three missionaries are operating in an area inhabited by some 365,000 people, divided into seven tribes.

"The missionaries operate schools, youth hostels, training centers for teachers and preachers, hospitals, clinic and a leper camp. Some of these are run in conjunction with other denominations or with government aid and they all contribute greatly to the natives' cultural and spiritual lives.

"This is an area that owes its prosperity to mining operations, many of which are controlled throughout the Congo by the great Union Miniere syndicate. I discussed the social aspects of mining operations with Mr. E. Toussaint, local consultant to the Union Miniere on native affairs and Mr. F. Grevisse, former District Commissioner and Mayor of Elizabethville, who retired recently after having instituted the housing scheme for the native city which bears his name.

"These gentlemen outlined the history of the company's experience during in native affairs in a most impressive manner. At each of three mines I saw during my two-day stay I was shown schools hospitals and social service centers built and maintained by the company.

"This is a part of the world where conditions of health, housing and education are extremely low. The Union Miniere has demonstrated that a company's own interests are best served by making direct contributions to improve those conditions. Their own workers and the entire Congo have benefited.

"One morning Col. J. deRyckmans de Betz took me to the Prince Leopold Mine, one of the richest base metals mines in the world. It produces some 290,000 tons of concentrate per year containing 30 per cent pure copper and 165,000 tons containing 54 per cent pure zinc.

"The next day we visited more copper mines just over the border in Northern Rhodesia.

"These mines contribute to the strategic metals production of the Western world and to the prosperity which permits the Congo to buy from the United States a volume of goods second only to its purchases from its parent country.

"Ohioans will be interest to know that the Congo's chief imports from the United States are industrial machinery, automobiles, tractors and rubber products."