Liberia <«- 



Article 11. of this treaty was defined in such extraordinarily- 

 vague language that its purport could have been clear to no one.^ 

 But the question was finally set at rest by further negotiations in 

 1902, which resulted in the Anglo-Liberian boundary commission 

 in 1903. The same treaty also provided for the repayment 

 to Liberia of the sum of _^4,750, which was intended to 

 reimburse Liberia for sums originally paid between 1849 and 

 1856 for the purchase of some of these contested territories. 



French opinion at the time censured the British Govern- 

 ment for this action in forcibly curtailing Liberian limits. 

 The Belgian author, Colonel Wauwermans, who in 1885 

 published an admirable work on the history of Liberia, reflected 

 French feeling when he compared the aggressive attitude of 

 Great Britain to the kindly and indulgent demeanour which 

 France displayed towards the little republic. But France, too, 

 soon afterwards was to have her unscrupulous mood. By deeds 

 of purchase and treaties, the little State of Maryland (and 

 subsequently the bigger Republic of Liberia with which it 



1 The actual text of Article II. of the Treaty of 1885 runs thus: 

 "The line marking the north-western boundary of the Republic of Liberia 

 shall commence at the point on the sea coast at which, at low water, the line of 

 the south-eastern or left bank of the Mannah River intersects the general line of 

 the sea coast, and shall be continued along the line marked by low water on 

 the south-eastern or left bank of the Mannah River, until such line, or such 

 line prolonged in a north-easterly direction, intersects the line or the prolongation 

 of the line marking the north-eastern or inland boundary of the territories of 

 the republic, with such deviations as may hereafter be found necessary to place 

 within Liberian territory the town of Boporo and such other towns as shall be 

 hereafter acknowledged to have belonged to the republic at the time of the 

 signing of this Convention." 



It is regrettable that tliose who negotiated this treaty should have composed 

 an article so vaguely and cumbrously worded. Fortunately, when it came to a 

 delimitation of the boundary many years afterwards Great Britain was sufficiently 

 actuated by goodwill towards Liberia not to avail herself of the bad definition 

 of her frontier expressed in this article. But evidently this fault was not confined 

 to British or Liberian diplomatists. The wording of the French boundary treaty 

 of 1892, as will be seen later on, was almost equally vague and contradictory. 



