Zambezi and their affluents; the adoption of a low maximum tariff in all the Portuguese African dominions, with the guarantee to Great Britain of most favoured nation treatment; the concession to British subjects in the Congo district of the same rights as were granted to Portuguese subjects as regards purchase or lease of lands, missionary operations, or taxation; the suppression of the slave trade and of slavery; and the precise definition of the extent of the Portuguese possessions in Africa, together with the transfer to Britain of any Portuguese rights in West Africa between 5° W. long. and 5° E. long. Not unnaturally the proposal thus to recognize the position of Portugal caused uneasiness to the International Association, and on March 15, 1883,1 Lord Granville made it clear that, in delimiting the internal boundary of the lands over which it was proposed to recognize Portuguese sovereignty, care must be taken to exclude the possibility of extending Portuguese control over Stanley Pool. Generous as were these terms, Portugal with singular fatuity persisted in fighting them item by item, and the final agreement was delayed to February 26, 1884.2 The treaty showed at every point concessions to Portuguese obstinacy: the sovereignty of Portugal over the coast from 5° 12'S. lat. to 8° S. lat. was conceded, the inland limit on the Congo to be Noki, and on the rest of the coast to be the boundaries of the existing possessions of the coast and riparian tribes, the delimitation being entrusted to Portugal, but to be approved by the United Kingdom. All foreigners were to receive equal treatment with Portuguese subjects in all matters in the territory recognized as subject to Portuguese sovereignty; there was to be complete freedom of trade and of navigation on the Congo and its affluents; complete religious equality was to be established, and the régime of freedom of navigation was to apply to the Zambezi. The customs tariff in the territory was not for ten years to exceed the Mozambique tariff of 1877, and only to be altered thereafter by agreement. A British and Portuguese Commission was to 1 C. 3885, pp. 12-15. 2 C. 3886. supervise the measures taken to secure free navigation of the Congo, Portugal declining absolutely to permit the establishment of the international control for which Britain pressed. No cession of territory was made by Portugal, but she admitted that her rights on the Shiré did not extend beyond the confluence of the Ruo with that river, gave a right of pre-emption over her West African possessions between 5° E. long. and 5° W. long., forbade the raising of the customs tariffs in her African possessions for ten years, and gave British subjects most favoured nation treatment in all these possessions. Portugal also undertook to suppress the slave trade and slavery in her new territory. The motives of the British Government in arranging this treaty have been much canvassed. Sir H. Johnston,1 who praises its terms, censures the British Parliament for failing to ratify it, an accusation which is open to the technical objection that it does not rest with Parliament, save when expressly so provided, to ratify a treaty concluded by the Crown. On the other hand, Dr. Scott Keltie2 finds it necessary to defend Lord Granville's action by the assumption that he and Stanley himself acted in the belief that on completing the organization of an administration on the Congo the King of the Belgians would hand over the territory to Britain, which would then have no reason to regret that the mouth of the river was in Portuguese hands. It must be remembered that at this time it was still doubtful whether French claims would not prevail, and that, in any event, as the United Kingdom did not desire itself to take possession, it may have seemed well to settle the matter by allotting power to the one claimant which had some show of historic right. Moreover, the advantages to be gained by the treaty were not negligible, and criticism of its terms is possible only if it could be established that the British might have secured the control for themselves. 1 J. A. S. iii. 459, 460; Journ. Soc. Comp. Leg. xviii. 30, 31; Fitzmaurice, Lord Granville, ii. 345, 346. 2 Partition of Africa, p. 145. This theory is not favoured by what we now know of Lord Granville's views (Fitzmaurice, ii. 355, 356). In England itself the treaty was the reverse of popular: it was denounced by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce 1 on the ground that Portugal would as elsewhere in her possessions hamper British trade, and by the Anti-Slavery Society 2 on the ground that, whatever her promises, Portugal would never deal effectively with the slave trade. These arguments could be answered, but Lord Granville from the first had dealt with the matter on the basis that Portugal must obtain the assent of the Great Powers to the proposed assertion of her sovereignty, and it was soon obvious that this assent would not be forthcoming. The King of the Belgians recognized in the treaty a grave menace to his plans, and he found ready support both in France and Germany. France still entertained hopes of obtaining the Congo, and on March 133 definitely informed Portugal of her refusal to acknowledge her rights. Germany had no immediate prospect of acquiring the Congo, though as early as 1875 annexation had been suggested, and since then Pogge had travelled in the western basis of the Congo and Böhm and Reichardt in the south. But her merchants had the strongest possible objection to Portuguese sovereignty. Prince Bismarck was only too glad to favour France at the expense of England, and still more to support a project which would place the Congo in the hands of a weak power in lieu of France. On April 17 Prince Bismarck seems to have sounded France as to the desirability of an international discussion of the question, and on the following day he delivered to Portugal and Britain alike a characteristically peremptory refusal to accept the treaty. On April 22 the Association was further strengthened by the formal accord of recognition of its flag as that of a friendly government by the Government of the United States. This-the first 1 C. 4023, pp. 17, 30. 2 Ibid., pp. 40, 44. 3 Masoin, Histoire, i. 36. The British Government were very imperfectly informed at the time of these proceedings; see C. 4205. recognition of its territorial sovereignty-was the work of General Sanford, who had taken the deepest interest in the undertaking, and by representing the King as embued with the ideals of the founders of Liberia had won the Senate on April 10 to approve recognition by the executive power. On the following day the King brought to fruition his prolonged dealings with France by the signature of an agreement, under which the Association pledged itself not to cede without previous consultation with France any of the free stations and territories which it had established on the Congo and the Niari-Kwilu, and 'wishing to afford a new proof of its friendly feeling towards France, pledges itself to give her the right of preference, if through any unforeseen circumstances the Association were one day led to realize its possessions'. It can hardly be doubted that this agreement appeared to France little more than a prelude to the formal transfer of the territory to her control. The trend of international opinion resulted in a volte-face on the part of Portugal, which decided to see if, since the United Kingdom could not secure the carrying out of the treaty, it were not possible to obtain at least the substance of her aims by recourse to Germany and France. Subsequent events make it clear that the basis of the rapprochement that was then effected between Portugal and the Powers, which had refused to recognize her territorial claims in terms the reverse of complimentary, was their promise, implemented in 1886, to recognize by treaty her preposterous claims to the territory lying between her possessions in Angola and Mozambique, whose union would have shut the United Kingdom out from Central Africa.2 Great Britain 3 made an effort to save the treaty by suggesting wholesale modification especially in the direction of entrusting the 1 Stanley, The Congo, ii. 388. 2 Scott Keltie, Partition of Africa, pp. 440-1; Franco-Portuguese treaty of May 12, 1886, Article IV; German-Portuguese treaty of December 30, 1886, Article VII. These claims were for ever settled by the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of June 11, 1891. 3 C. 4205, pp. 1 sq. control of navigation to an International Commission as originally proposed, but from June on it became clear that only an International Conference could dispose of the issue. The formal proposal was credited to Portugal,' and Germany secured the assent of France to it, by recognizing on September 13, in a note from Prince Bismarck to Baron de Courcel, the validity of the agreement of April 23 giving France the right of pre-emption. On October 8,3 therefore, Germany in concert with France issued formal invitations to the leading Powers to take part in an international conference to discuss (1) freedom of commerce in the basin and mouths of the Congo; (2) the application to the Congo and the Niger of the principles adopted by the Congress of Vienna with a view to preserving freedom of navigation on certain international rivers, principles applied later on to the Danube; and (3) a definition of the formalities necessary to be observed so that new occupations on the African coast should be deemed effective. The British Government took no exception in principle to the Conference, though the hostile temper of its promoters was obvious, but insistedfinally with success-on obtaining from Prince Bismarck assurances as to the nature of the topics which were to form the subject of discussion.* In any estimate of the attitude of the British Government during this period, whether as regards the Congo or other African questions, including that of Angra Pequena, then at its height, or as regards New Guinea, on which Germany was about to establish a hold, it is imperative to take into account the actual position of general European politics. It is easy, if this essential consideration is disregarded, as it normally is by critics of Lord Granville's action in Africa and Oceania alike, to represent the period as one of foolish surrenders of territory made without any justification at the expense of the interest of British communities in South Africa and Australasia. Yet nothing can possibly be more unfair or less worthy of a historian than this attitude. The p. 2. 1 C. 4205, 2 Stanley, The Congo, ii. 388. |