Belgian Congo 123 GENERAL ACT OF BERLIN ment of the conditions of their moral and material well-being, and to help in suppressing slavery and especially the slave trade . They shall, without distinction of creed or nation , protect and favour all religious, scientific, or charitable institu tions and undertakings created and organized for the above ends , or which aim at instructing the natives and bringing home to them the blessings of civilization . Christian mission aries, scientists, and explorers , with their followers , property , and collections, shall likewise be the objects of especial pro tection Freedom of conscience and religious toleration are expressly guaranteed to the natives, no less than to subjects and to foreigners. The free and public exercise of all forms of divine worship, and the right to build edifices for religious purposes , and to organize religious missions belonging to all creeds , shall not be limited or fettered in any way whatsoever .

CHAPTER III . Declaration relative to the neutrality of the territories.

ART. 10. In order to give a new guarantee of security to trade and industry , and to encourage by the maintenance of peace the development of civilization in the countries men tioned in Art . 1 , and placed under the free trade system , the high signatory parties to the present Act, and those who shall hereafter adopt it, bind themselves to respect the neutrality of the territories or portions of territories belonging to the said countries, comprising therein the territorial waters, so long as the Powers which exercise or shall exercise the rights of sovereignty or protectorate over those territories, using their option of proclaiming themselves neutral , shall fulfil the duties which neutrality requires.

ART . 11. In case a Power exercising rights of sovereignty or protectorate in the countries mentioned in Art. 1 and placed under the free trade system , shall be involved in a war , then the high signatory parties to the present Act, and those who shall hereafter adopt it , bind themselves to lend their good offices in order that the territories belonging to this Power and comprised in the conventional free trade zone shall , by the common consent of this Power and of the other belligerent or belligerents, be placed during the war under the rule of neutrality and considered as belonging to a non -belligerent State, the belligerents henceforth abstaining from extending