Chapter 22

The significance of the events just described will be apparent when it is remembered that British East Africa, inclusive of Uganda and the Upper Nile basin, comprises altogether 670,000 square miles, to a large extent fertile, and capable of settlement by white men in the more elevated tracts of the interior. German East Africa contains 385,000 square miles, and is also destined to have a future that will dwarf that of many of the secondary States of to-day.

The prosperity of British East Africa was greatly enhanced by the opening of a railway, 580 miles long, from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza in 1902. Among other benefits, it has cut the ground from under the slave-trade, which used to depend on the human beast of burden for the carriage of all heavy loads[437].

[Footnote 437: For the progress and prospects of this important colony, see Sir G. Portal, _The British Mission to Uganda in 1893_; Sir Charles Elliot, _British East Africa_ (1905); also Lugard, _Our East African Empire_; Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_.]

The Anglo-German agreement of 1890 also cleared up certain questions between Britain and Germany relating to South-West Africa which had made bad blood between the two countries. In and after the year 1882 the attention of the colonial party in Germany was turned to the district north of the Orange River, and in the spring of the year 1883 Herr Lüderitz founded a factory and hoisted the German flag at Angra Pequeña. There are grounds for thinking that that district was coveted, not so much for its intrinsic value, which is slight, as because it promised to open up communications with the Boer Republics. Lord Granville ventured to express his doubts on that subject to Count Herbert Bismarck, whom the Chancellor had sent to London in the summer of 1884 in order to take matters out of the hands of the too Anglophil ambassador, Count Münster. Anxious to show his mettle, young Bismarck fired up, and informed Lord Granville that his question was one of mere curiosity; later on he informed him that it was a matter which did not concern him[438].

[Footnote 438: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii. p. 120.]

It must be admitted, however, that the British Government had acted in a dilatory and ineffective manner. Sir Donald Currie had introduced a deputation to Lord Derby, Colonial Minister in the Gladstone Cabinet, which warned him seriously as to German aims on the coast of Damaraland; in reply to which that phlegmatic Minister stated that Germany was not a colonising Power, and that the annexation of those districts would be resented by Great Britain as an "unfriendly act[439]." In November 1883 the German ambassador inquired whether British protection would be accorded to a few German settlers on the coast of Damaraland. No decisive answer was given, though the existence of British interests there was affirmed. Then, when Germany claimed the right to annex it, a counter-claim was urged from Whitehall (probably at the instigation of the Cape Government) that the land in question was a subject of close interest to us, as it might be annexed in the future. It was against this belated and illogical plea that Count Bismarck was sent to lodge a protest; and in August 1884 Germany clinched the matter by declaring Angra Pequeña and surrounding districts to be German territory. (See note at the end of the chapter.)

[Footnote 439: See Sir D. Currie's paper on South Africa to the members of the Royal Colonial Institute, April 10, 1888 (_Proceedings_, vol. xix. p. 240).]

In this connection we may remark that Angra Pequeña had recently figured as a British settlement on German maps, including that of Stieler of the year 1882. Walfisch Bay, farther to the north, was left to the Union Jack, that flag having been hoisted there by official sanction in 1878 owing to the urgent representations of Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor of Cape Colony. The rest of the coast was left to Germany; the Gladstone Government informed that of Berlin that no objection would be taken to her occupation of that territory. Great annoyance was felt at the Cape at what was looked on as an uncalled for surrender of British claims, especially when the Home Government failed to secure just treatment for the British settlers. Sir Charles Dilke states in his _Problems of Greater Britain_ that only the constant protests of the Cape Ministry prevented the authorities at Whitehall from complying with German unceasing requests for the cession of Walfisch Bay, doubtless as an item for exchange during the negotiations of 1889-90[440].

[Footnote 440: _Op. cit._ vol. i. p. 502.]

We may add here that in 1886 Germany defined the northern limits of "South-West Africa"--such was the name of the new colony--by an agreement with Portugal; and in 1890 an article of the Anglo-German agreement above referred to gave an eastward extension of that northern border which brought it to the banks of the River Zambesi.

The British Government took a firmer stand in a matter that closely concerned the welfare of Natal and the relations of the Transvaal Republic to Germany. In 1884 some German prospectors sought to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay in Zululand and to hoist the German flag. The full truth on this interesting matter is not yet known; it formed a pendant to the larger question of Delagoa Bay, which must be briefly noticed here.

Friction had arisen between Great Britain and Portugal over conflicting claims respecting Delagoa Bay and its adjoining lands; and in this connection it may be of interest to note that the Disraeli Ministry had earlier missed an opportunity of buying out Portuguese claims. The late Lord Carnarvon stated that, when he took the portfolio for colonial affairs in that Ministry, he believed the purchase might have been effected for a comparatively small sum. Probably the authorities at Lisbon were aroused to a sense of the potential value of their Laurenço Marquez domain by the scramble for Africa which began early in the eighties; and it must be regretted that the British Government, with the lack of foresight which has so often characterised it, let slip the opportunity of securing Delagoa Bay until its value was greatly enhanced. It then agreed to refer the questions in dispute to the arbitration of General MacMahon, President of the French Republic (1875). As has generally happened when foreign potentates have adjudicated on British interests, his verdict was wholly hostile to us. It even assigned to Portugal a large district to the south of Delagoa Bay which the Portuguese had never thought of claiming from its native inhabitants, the Tongas[441]. In fact, a narrative of all the gains which have accrued to Portugal in Delagoa Bay, and thereafter to the people who controlled its railway to Pretoria, would throw a sinister light on the connection that has too often subsisted between the noble theory of arbitration and the profitable practice of peacefully willing away, or appropriating, the rights and possessions of others. Portugal soon proved to be unable to avail herself of the opportunities opened up by the gift unexpectedly awarded her by MacMahon. She was unable to control either the Tongas or the Boers.

[Footnote 441: Sir C. Dilke, _Problems of Greater Britain_, vol. i. pp. 553-556.]

England having been ruled out, there was the chance for some other Power to step in and acquire St. Lucia Bay, one of the natural outlets of the southern part of the Transvaal Republic. It is an open secret that the forerunners of the "colonial party" in Germany had already sought to open up closer relations with the Boer Republics. In 1876 the President of the Transvaal, accompanied by a Dutch member of the Cape Parliament, visited Berlin, probably with the view of reciprocating those advances. They had an interview with Bismarck, the details of which are not fully known. Nothing, however, came of it at the time, owing to Bismarck's preoccupation in European affairs. Early in the "eighties," the German colonial party, then beginning its campaign, called attention repeatedly to the advantages of gaining a foothold in or near Delagoa Bay; but the rise of colonial feeling in Germany led to a similar development in the public sentiment of Portugal, and indeed of all lands; so that, by the time that Bismarck was won over to the cause of Teutonic Expansion, the Portuguese refused to barter away any of their ancient possessions. This probably accounts for the concentration of German energies on other parts of the South African coast, which, though less valuable in themselves, might serve as _points d'appui_ for German political agents and merchants in their future dealings with the Boers, who were then striving to gain control over Bechuanaland. The points selected by the Germans for their action were on the coast of Damaraland, as already stated, and St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, a position which President Burgers had striven to secure for the Transvaal in 1878.

In reference to St. Lucia Bay our narrative must be shadowy in outline owing to the almost complete secrecy with which the German Government wisely shrouds a failure. The officials and newspaper writers of Germany have not yet contracted the English habit of proclaiming their intentions beforehand and of parading before the world their recriminations in case of a fiasco. All that can be said, then, with certainty is that in the autumn of 1884 a German trader named Einwold attempted to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay and to prepare the way for the recognition of German claims if all went well. In fact, he could either be greeted as a _Mehrer des Reichs_, or be disowned as an unauthorised busybody.

We may here cite passages from the Diary of Dr. Busch, Bismarck's secretary, which prove that the State took a lively interest in Einwold's adventure. On February 25, 1885, Busch had a conversation with Herr Andrae, in the course of which they "rejoiced at England's difficulties in the Sudan, and I expressed the hope that Wolseley's head would soon arrive in Cairo, nicely pickled and packed." Busch then referred to British friction with Russia in Afghanistan and with France in Burmah, and then put the question to Andrae, "'Have we given up South Africa; or is the Lucia Bay affair still open?' He said that the matter was still under consideration[442]."

[Footnote 442: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii. p. 132.]

It has since transpired that the British Government might have yielded to pressure from Berlin, had not greater pressure been exercised from Natal and from British merchants and shipowners interested in the South African trade. Sir Donald Currie, in the paper already referred to, stated that he could easily have given particulars of the means which had to be used in order to spur on the British Government to decisive action. Unfortunately he was discreetly reticent, and merely stated that not only St. Lucia Bay, but the whole of the coast between Natal and the Delagoa Bay district was then in question, and that the Gladstone Ministry was finally induced to telegraph instructions to Cape Town for the despatch of a cruiser to assert British claims to St. Lucia Bay. H.M.S. _Goshawk_ at once steamed thither, and hoisted the British flag, by virtue of a treaty made with a Zulu chief in 1842. Then ensued the usual interchange of angry notes between Berlin and London; Bismarck and Count Herbert sought to win over, or browbeat, Lord Rosebery, then Colonial Minister. In this, however, he failed; and the explanation of the failure given to Busch was that Lord Rosebery was too clever for him and "quite mesmerised him." On May 7, 1885, Germany gave up her claims to that important position, in consideration of gaining at the expense of England in the Cameroons[443]. Here again a passage from Busch's record deserves quotation. In a conversation which he had with Bismarck on January 5, 1886, he put the question:--

"Why have we not been able to secure the Santa Lucia Bay?" I asked. "Ah!" he replied, "it is not so valuable as it seemed to be at first. People who were pursuing their own interests on the spot represented it to be of greater importance than it really was. And then the Boers were not disposed to take any proper action in the matter. The bay would have been valuable to us if the distance from the Transvaal were not so great. And the English attached so much importance to it that they declared it was impossible for them to give it up, and they ultimately conceded a great deal to us in New Guinea and Zanzibar. In colonial matters we must not take too much in hand at a time, and we already have enough for a beginning. We must now hold rather with the English, while, as you know, we were formerly more on the French side[444]. But, as the last elections in France show, every one of any importance there had to make a show of hostility to us."

[Footnote 443: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1885), p. 2.]

[Footnote 444: He here referred to the Franco-German agreement of Dec. 24, 1885, whereby the two Powers amicably settled the boundaries of their West African lands, and Germany agreed not to thwart French designs on Tahiti, the Society Isles, the New Hebrides, etc. See Banning, _Le Partage politique de l'Afrique_, pp. 22-26.]

This passage explains, in part at least, why Bismarck gave up the nagging tactics latterly employed towards Great Britain. Evidently he had hoped to turn the current of thought in France from the Alsace-Lorraine question to the lands over the seas, and his henchmen in the Press did all in their power to persuade people, both in Germany and France, that England was the enemy. The Anglophobe agitation was fierce while it lasted; but its artificiality is revealed by the passage just quoted.

We may go further, and say that the more recent outbreak of Anglophobia in Germany may probably be ascribed to the same official stimulus; and it too may be expected to cease when the politicians of Berlin see that it no longer pays to twist the British lion's tail. That sport ceased in and after 1886, because France was found still to be the enemy. Frenchmen did not speak much about Alsace-Lorraine. They followed Gambetta's advice: "Never speak about it, but always think of it." The recent French elections revealed that fact to Bismarck; and, lo! the campaign of calumny against England at once slackened.

We may add that two German traders settled on the coast of Pondoland, south of Natal; and in August 1885 the statesmen of Berlin put forth feelers to Whitehall with a view to a German Protectorate of that coast. They met with a decisive repulse[445].

[Footnote 445: Cape Colony, Papers on Pondoland, 1887, pp. 1, 41. For the progress of German South-West Africa and East Africa, see Parl. Papers, Germany, Nos. 474, 528, 2790.]

Meanwhile, the dead-set made by Germany, France, and Russia against British interests in the years 1883-85 had borne fruit in a way little expected by those Powers, but fully consonant with previous experience. It awakened British statesmen from their apathy, and led them to adopt measures of unwonted vigour. The year 1885 saw French plans in Indo-China checked by the annexation of Burmah. German designs in South Africa undoubtedly quickened the resolve of the Gladstone Ministry to save Bechuanaland for the British Empire.

It is impossible here to launch upon the troublous sea of Boer politics, especially as the conflict naturally resulting from two irreconcilable sets of ideas outlasted the century with which this work is concerned. We can therefore only state that filibustering bands of Boers had raided parts of Bechuanaland, and seemed about to close the trade-route northwards to the Zambesi. This alone would have been a serious bar to the prosperity of Cape Colony; but the loyalists had lost their confidence in the British Government since the events of 1880, while a large party in the Cape Ministry, including at that time Mr. Cecil Rhodes, seemed willing to abet the Boers in all their proceedings. A Boer deputation went to England in the autumn of 1883, and succeeded in cajoling Lord Derby into a very remarkable surrender. Among other things, he conceded to them an important strip of land west of the River Harts[446].

[Footnote 446: For the negotiations and the Convention of February 27, 1884, see Papers relating to the South African Republic, 1887.]

Far from satisfying them, this act encouraged some of their more restless spirits to set up two republics named Stellaland and Goshen. There, however, they met a tough antagonist, John Mackenzie. That devoted missionary, after long acquaintance with Boers and Bechuanas, saw how serious would be the loss to the native tribes and to the cause of civilisation if the raiders were allowed to hold the routes to the interior. By degrees he aroused the sympathy of leading men in the Press, who thereupon began to whip up the laggards of Whitehall and Downing Street. Consequently, Mackenzie, on his return to South Africa, was commissioned to act as British Resident in Bechuanaland, and in that capacity he declared that country to be under British protection (May 1884). At once the Dutch throughout South Africa raised a hue and cry against him, in which Mr. Rhodes joined, with the result that he was recalled on July 30.

His place was taken by a statesman whose exploits raised him to a high place among builders of the Empire. However much Cecil Rhodes differed from Mackenzie on the native question and other affairs, he came to see the urgent need of saving for the Empire the central districts which, as an old Boer said, formed "the key of Africa." Never were the loyalists more dispirited at the lack of energy shown by the Home Government; and never was there greater need of firmness. In a sense, however, the action of the Germans on the coast of Damaraland (August-October 1884) helped to save the situation. The imperious need of keeping open the route to the interior, which would be closed to trade if ever the Boers and Germans joined hands, spurred on the Gladstone Ministry to support the measures proposed by Mr. Rhodes and the loyalists of Cape Colony. When the whole truth on that period comes to be known, it will probably be found that British rule was in very grave danger in the latter half of the year 1884.

Certainly no small expedition ever accomplished so much for the Empire, at so trifling a cost and without the effusion of blood, as that which was now sent out. It was entrusted to Sir Charles Warren. He recruited his force mainly from the loyalists of South Africa, though a body named Methuen's Horse went out from these islands. In all it numbered nearly 5000 men. Moving quickly from the Orange River through Griqualand West, he reached the banks of the Vaal at Barkly Camp by January 22, 1885, that is, only six weeks after his arrival at Cape Town. At the same time 3000 troops took their station in the north of Natal in readiness to attack the Transvaal Boers, should they fall upon Warren. It soon transpired, however, that the more respectable Boers had little sympathy with the raiders into Bechuanaland. These again were so far taken aback by the speed of his movements and the thoroughness of his organisation as to manifest little desire to attack a force which seemed ever ready at all points and spied on them from balloons. The behaviour of the commander was as tactful as his dispositions were effective; and, as a result of these favouring circumstances (which the superficial may ascribe to luck), he was able speedily to clear Bechuanaland of those intruders[447].

[Footnote 447: See Sir Charles Warren's short account of the expedition, in the _Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute for _1885-86, pp. 5-45; also Mackenzie's _Austral Africa_, vol. ii. _ad init_., and _John Mackenzie_, by W.D. Mackenzie (1902).]

On September 30 it became what it has since remained--a British possession, safeguarding the route into the interior and holding apart the Transvaal Boers from the contact with the Germans of Damaraland which could hardly fail to produce an explosion. The importance of the latter fact has already been made clear. The significance of the former will be apparent when we remember that Mr. Rhodes, in his later and better-known character of Empire-builder, was able from Bechuanaland as a base to extend the domain of his Chartered Company up to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika in the year 1889.

It is well known that Rhodes hoped to extend the domain of his company as far north as the southern limit of the British East Africa Company. Here, however, the Germans forestalled him by their energy in Central Africa. Finally, the Anglo-German agreement of 1890 assigned to Germany all the _hinterland_ of Zanzibar as far west as the frontier of the Congo Free State, thus sterilising the idea of an all-British route from the Cape to Cairo, which possessed for some minds an alliterative and all-compelling charm.

As for the future of the vast territory which came to be known popularly as Rhodesia, we may note that the part bordering on Lake Nyassa was severed from the South Africa Company in 1894, and was styled the British Central Africa Protectorate. In 1895 the south of Bechuanaland was annexed to Cape Colony, a step greatly regretted by many well-wishers of the natives. The intelligent chief, Khama, visited England in that year, mainly in order to protest against the annexation of his lands by Cape Colony and by the South Africa Company. In this he was successful; he and other chiefs are directly under the protection of the Crown, but parts of the north and east of Bechuanaland are administered by the British South Africa Company. The tracts between the Rivers Limpopo and Zambesi, and thence north to the Tanganyika, form a territory vaster and more populous than any which has in recent years been administered by a company; and its rule leaves much to be desired.

* * * * *

It is time now to turn to the expansion of German and British spheres of influence in the Bight of Guinea and along the course of the Rivers Niger and Benuë. In the innermost part of the Bight of Guinea, British commercial interests had been paramount up to about 1880; but about that time German factories were founded in increasing numbers, and, owing to the dilatory action of British firms, gained increasing hold on the trade of several districts. The respect felt by native chiefs for British law was evinced by a request of five of the "Kings" of the Cameroons that they might have it introduced into their lands (1879). Authorities at Downing Street and Whitehall were deaf to the request. In striking contrast to this was the action of the German Government, which early in the year 1884 sent Dr. Nachtigall to explore those districts. The German ambassador in London informed Earl Granville on April 19, 1884, that the object of his mission was "to complete the information now in possession of the Foreign Office at Berlin on the state of German commerce on that coast." He therefore requested that the British authorities there should be furnished with suitable recommendations for his reception[448]. This was accordingly done, and, after receiving hospitality at various consulates, he made treaties with native chiefs, and hoisted the German flag at several points previously considered to be under British influence. This was especially the case on the coast to the east of the River Niger.

[Footnote 448: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1885), p. 14.]

The British Government was incensed at this procedure, and all the more so as plans were then on foot for consolidating British influence in the Cameroons. On that river there were six British, and two German firms, and the natives had petitioned for the protection of England; but H.M.S. _Flint_, on steaming into that river on July 20, found that the German flag had been hoisted by the officers of the German warship _Möwe_. Nachtigall had signed a treaty with "King Bell" on July 12, whereby native habits were to remain unchanged and no customs dues levied, but the whole district was placed under German suzerainty[449]. The same had happened at neighbouring districts. Thereupon Consul Hewitt, in accordance with instructions from London, established British supremacy at the Oil Rivers, Old and New Calabar, and several other points adjoining the Niger delta as far west as Lagos.

[Footnote 449: _Ibid_. p. 24.]

For some time there was much friction between London and Berlin on these questions, but on May 7, 1885, an agreement was finally arrived at, a line drawn between the Rio del Rey and the Old Calabar River being fixed on as the boundary of the spheres of influence of the two Powers, while Germany further recognised the sovereignty of Britain over St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, and promised not to annex any land between Natal and Delagoa Bay[450]. Many censures were lavished on this agreement, which certainly sacrificed important British interests in the Cameroons in consideration of the abandonment of German claims on the Zulu coast which were legally untenable. Thus, by pressing on various points formerly regarded as under British influence, Bismarck secured at least one considerable district--one moreover that is the healthiest on the West African coast. Subsequent expansion made of the Cameroons a colony containing some 140,000 square miles with more than 1,100,000 inhabitants.

[Footnote 450: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1885), p. 2.]

It is an open secret that Germany was working hard in 1884-85 to get a foothold on the Lower Niger and its great affluent, the Benuë. Two important colonial societies combined to send out Herr Flegel in the spring of 1885 to secure possession of districts on those rivers where British interests had hitherto been paramount. Fortunately for the cause of Free Trade (which Germany had definitely abandoned in 1880) private individuals had had enough foresight and determination to step in with effect, and to repair the harm which otherwise must have come from the absorption of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues in home affairs.

In the present case, British merchants were able to save the situation, because in the year 1879 the firms having important business dealings with the River Niger combined to form the National African Company in order to withstand the threatening pressure of the French advance soon to be described. In 1882 the Company's powers were extended, largely owing to Sir George Taubman Goldie, and it took the name of the National African Company. Extending its operations up the River Niger, it gradually cut the ground from under the French companies which had been formed for the exploitation and ultimate acquisition of those districts, so that after a time the French shareholders agreed to merge themselves in the British enterprise.

This important step was taken just in time to forestall German action from the side of the Cameroons, which threatened to shut out British trade from the banks of the River Benuë and the shores of Lake Chad. Forewarned of this danger, Sir George Goldie and his directors urged that bold and successful explorer, Mr. Joseph Thomson, to safeguard the nation's interests along the Benuë and north thereof. Thomson had scarcely recovered from the hardships of his epoch-marking journey through Masailand; but he now threw himself into the breach, quickly travelled from England to the Niger, and by his unrivalled experience alike of the means of travel and of native ways, managed to frame treaties with the Sultans of Sokoto and Gando, before the German envoy reached his destination (1885). The energy of the National African Company and the promptitude and tact of Mr. Thomson secured for his countrymen undisputed access to Lake Chad and the great country peopled by the warlike Haussas[451].

[Footnote 451: This greatest among recent explorers of Africa died in 1895. He never received any appropriate reward from the Court for his great services to science and to the nation at large.]

Seeing that both France and Germany seek to restrict foreign trade in their colonies, while Great Britain gives free access to all merchants on equal terms, we may regard this brilliant success as a gain, not only for the United Kingdom, but for the commerce of the world. The annoyance expressed in influential circles in Germany at the failure of the plans for capturing the trade of the Benuë district served to show the magnitude of the interests which had there been looked upon as prospectively and exclusively German. The delimitation of the new British territory with the Cameroon territory and its north-eastern extension to Lake Chad was effected by an Anglo-German agreement of 1886, Germany gaining part of the upper Benuë and the southern shore of Lake Chad. In all, the territories controlled by the British Company comprised about 500,000 square miles (more than four times the size of the United Kingdom).

It is somewhat characteristic of British colonial procedure in that period that many difficulties were raised as to the grant of a charter to the company which had carried through this work of national importance; but on July 10, 1886, it gained that charter with the title of the Royal Niger Company. The chief difficulties since that date have arisen from French aggressions on the west, which will be noticed presently.

In 1897 the Royal Niger Company overthrew the power of the turbulent and slave-raiding Sultan of Nupe, near the Niger, but, as has so often happened, the very success of the company doomed it to absorption by the nation. On January 1, 1900, its governing powers were handed over to the Crown; the Union Jack replaced the private flag; and Sir Frederick Lugard added to the services which he had rendered to the Empire in Uganda by undertaking the organisation of this great and fertile colony. In an interesting paper, read before the Royal Geographical Society in November 1903, he thus characterised his administrative methods: "To rule through the native chiefs, and, while checking the extortionate levies of the past, fairly to assess and enforce the ancient tribute. By this means a fair revenue will be assured to the emirs, in lieu of their former source of wealth, which consisted in slaves and slave-raiding, and in extortionate taxes on trade. . . . Organised slave-raiding has become a thing of the past in the country where it lately existed in its worst form." He further stated that the new colony has made satisfactory progress; but light railways were much needed to connect Lake Chad with the Upper Nile and with the Gulf of Guinea. The area of Nigeria (apart from the Niger Coast Protectorate) is about 500,000 square miles[452].

[Footnote 452: _The Geographical Journal_, January 1, 1904, pp. 5, 18, 27.]

The result, then, of the activity of French and Germans in West Africa has, on the whole, not been adverse to British interests. The efforts leading to these noteworthy results above would scarcely have been made but for some external stimulus. As happened in the days of Dupleix and Montcalm, and again at the time of the little-known efforts of Napoleon I. to appropriate the middle of Australia, the spur of foreign competition furthered not only the cause of exploration but also the expansion of the British Empire.

* * * * *

The expansion of French influence in Africa has been far greater than that of Germany; and, while arousing less attention on political grounds, it has probably achieved more solid results--a fact all the more remarkable when we bear in mind the exhaustion of France in 1871, and the very slow growth of her population at home. From 1872 to 1901 the number of her inhabitants rose from 36,103,000 to 38,962,000; while in the same time the figures for the German Empire showed an increase from 41,230,000 to 56,862,000. To some extent, then, the colonial growth of France is artificial; at least, it is not based on the imperious need which drives forth the surplus population of Great Britain and Germany. Nevertheless, so far as governmental energy and organising skill can make colonies successful, the French possessions in West Africa, Indo-China, Madagascar, and the Pacific, have certainly justified their existence[453]. No longer do we hear the old joke that a French colonial settlement consists of a dozen officials, a _restaurateur_, and a hair-dresser.

[Footnote 453: See _La Colonisation chez les Peuples modernes_, by Paul Leroy-Beaulieu; _Discours et Opinions_, by Jules Ferry; _La France coloniale_ (6th edit. 1893), by Alfred Rambaud; _La Colonisation de l'Indo-Chine_ (1902), by Chailley-Bert; _L'Indo-Chine française_ (1905), by Paul Doumer (describing its progress under his administration); _Notre Epopée coloniale_ (1901), by P. Legendre; _La Mise en Valeur de notre Domaine coloniale_ (1903), by C. Guy; _Un Siècle d'Expansion coloniale_ (1900), by M. Dubois and A. Terrier; _Le Partage de l'Afrique_ (1898), by V. Deville.]

In the seventies the French Republic took up once more the work of colonial expansion in West Africa, in which the Emperor Napoleon III. had taken great interest. The Governor of Senegal, M. Faidherbe, pushed on expeditions from that colony to the head waters of the Niger in the years 1879-81. There the French came into collision with a powerful slave-raiding chief, Samory, whom they worsted in a series of campaigns in the five years following. Events therefore promised to fulfil the desires of Gambetta, who, during his brief term of office in 1881, initiated plans for the construction of a trans-Saharan railway (never completed) and the establishment of two powerful French companies on the Upper Niger. French energy secured for the Republic the very lands which the great traveller Mungo Park first revealed to the gaze of civilised peoples. It is worthy of note that in the year 1865 the House of Commons, when urged to promote British trade and influence on that mighty river, passed a resolution declaring that any extension of our rule in that quarter was inexpedient. So rapid, however, was the progress of the French arms on the Niger, and in the country behind our Gold Coast settlements, that private individuals in London and Liverpool began to take action. Already in 1878 the British firms trading with the Lower Niger had formed the United African Company, with the results noted above. A British Protectorate was also established in the year 1884 over the coast districts around Lagos, "with the view of guarding their interests against the advance of the French and Germans[454]."

[Footnote 454: For its progress see Colonial Reports, Niger Coast Protectorate, for 1898-99. For the Franco-German agreement of December 24, 1885, delimiting their West African lands, see Banning, _Le Partage politique de l'Afrique_, pp. 22-26. For the Anglo-French agreement of August 10, 1889, see Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 3 (1890).]

Meanwhile the French were making rapid progress under the lead of Gallieni and Archinard. In 1890 the latter conquered Segu-Sikoro, and a year later Bissandugu. A far greater prize fell to the tricolour at the close of 1893. Boiteux and Bonnier succeeded in leading a flotilla and a column to the mysterious city of Timbuctu; but a little later a French force sustained a serious check from the neighbouring tribes. The affair only spurred on the Republic to still greater efforts, which led finally to the rout of Samory's forces and his capture in the year 1898. That redoubtable chief, who had defied France for fifteen years, was sent as a prisoner to Gaboon.

These campaigns and other more peaceful "missions" added to the French possessions a vast territory of some 800,000 square kilometres in the basin of the Niger. Meanwhile disputes had occurred with the King of Dahomey, which led to the utter overthrow of his power by Colonel Dodds in a brilliant little campaign in 1892. The crowned slave-raider was captured and sent to Martinique.

These rapid conquests, especially those on the Niger, brought France and England more than once to the verge of war. In the autumn of the year 1897, the aggressions of the French at and near Bussa, on the right bank of the Lower Niger, led to a most serious situation. Despite its inclusion in the domains of the Royal Niger Company, that town was occupied by French troops. At the Guildhall banquet (November 9), Lord Salisbury made the firm but really prudent declaration that the Government would brook no interference with the treaty rights of a British company. The pronouncement was timely; for French action at Bussa, taken in conjunction with the Marchand expedition from the Niger basin to the Upper Nile at Fashoda (see Chapter XVII.), seemed to betoken a deliberate defiance of the United Kingdom. Ultimately, however, the tricolour flag was withdrawn from situations that were legally untenable. These questions were settled by the Anglo-French agreement of 1898, which, we may add, cleared the ground for the still more important compact of 1904.

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The limits of this chapter having already been passed, it is impossible to advert to the parts played by Italy and Portugal in the partition of Africa. At best they have been subsidiary; the colonial efforts of Italy in the Red Sea and in Somaliland have as yet produced little else than disaster and disappointment. But for the part played by Serpa Pinto in the Zambesi basin, the rôle of Portugal has been one of quiescence. Some authorities, as will appear in the following chapter, would describe it by a less euphonious term; it is now known that slave-hunting goes on in the upper part of the Zambesi basin owned by them. The French settlement at Obock, opposite Perim, and the partition of Somaliland between England and Italy, can also only be named.

The general results of the partition of Africa may best be realised by studying the map at the close of this volume, and by the following statistics as presented by Mr. Scott Keltie in the _Encyclopoedia Britannica_:--

Square Miles. French territories in Africa (inclusive of the Sahara) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,804,974 British (inclusive of the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, but exclusive of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan--610,000 square miles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,713,910 German. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933,380 Congo Free State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000 Portuguese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790,124 Italian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188,500

These results correspond in the main to the foresight and energy displayed by the several States, and to the initial advantages which they enjoyed on the coast of Africa. The methods employed by France and Germany present a happy union of individual initiative with intelligent and persistent direction by the State; for it must be remembered that up to the year 1880 the former possessed few good bases of operation, and the latter none whatever. The natural portals of Africa were in the hands of Great Britain and Portugal. It is difficult to say what would have been the present state of Africa if everything had depended on the officials at Downing Street and Whitehall. Certainly the expansion of British influence in that continent (apart from the Nile valley) would have been insignificant but for the exertions of private individuals. Among them the names of Joseph Thomson, Sir William Mackinnon, Sir John Kirk, Sir Harry Johnston, Sir George Goldie, Sir Frederick Lugard, John Mackenzie, and Cecil Rhodes, will be remembered as those of veritable Empire-builders.

Viewing the matter from the European standpoint, the partition of Africa may be regarded as a triumph for the cause of peace. In the years 1880-1900, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, and Belgium came into possession of new lands far larger than those for which French and British fleets and armies had fought so desperately in the eighteenth century. If we go further back and think of the wars waged for the possession of the barrier towns of Flanders, the contrast between the fruitless strifes of that age and the peaceful settlement of the affairs of a mighty continent will appear still more striking. It is true, of course, that the cutting up of the lands of natives by white men is as indefensible morally as it is inevitable in the eager expansiveness of the present age. Further, it may be admitted that the methods adopted towards the aborigines have sometimes been disgraceful. But even so, the events of the years 1880-1900, black as some of them are, compare favourably with those of the long ages when the term "African trade" was merely a euphemism for slave-hunting.

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NOTE.--The Parliamentary Papers on Angra Pequeña (1884) show that the dispute with Germany was largely due to the desire of Lord Derby to see whether the Government of Cape Colony would bear the cost of administration of that whole coast if it were annexed. Owing to a change of Ministry at Cape Town early in 1884, the affirmative reply was very long in coming; and meantime Germany took decisive action, as described on p. 524.