GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM OF. 



401 



New defensive works at Singapore and Hong- 

 Kong were completed in 1888, and a part of 

 the armament was in place, though the 10-inch 

 guns were still wanting. The fortifications in 

 Mauritius are to be completed in 1889. The 

 works at Trincomalee and St. Helena were 

 nearly fiui-hed in the middle of 1888, and those 

 at St. Lucia were well under way. The Im- 

 perial Government has co-operated with the 

 colonial authorities in fortifying Cape Town. 

 The Australasian colonies have constructed 

 forts for themselves, and armed them with guns 

 superior to those at present available for the 

 defense of English seaports. The imperial de- 

 fense bill that was passed in the session of 1888 

 provides for the expense of fortifying the ports 

 and naval stations by a loan, which is secured 

 on the reversionary increase in value of the 

 Suez-Canal shares held by the Government, to 

 accrue whwn the existing charge is paid off. 

 The dividends on these shares, 106.702 in num- 

 ber, which were purchased from the Khedive 

 Ismail in 1875 for the sum of 3,976.582, had 

 been pledged by him to the company till 1894. 



The Queensland ministry in lo8S attempted 

 to dictate the choice of a Governor for the 

 colony, and thus deprive the home Govern- 

 ment of almost the last vestige of authority 

 and participation in the government of the 

 colony. When Sir Anthony Musgrave. the 

 late Governor, died suddenly in October, the 

 Queensland ministers endeavored to obtain a 

 promise that the name of the proposed new 

 Governor should be communicated to them 

 before the appointment was definitely made. 

 Lord Knutstord declined to accede, in a dis- 

 patch dated October 19, saying that it is ob- 

 vious that the officer charged with the duty of 

 conducting the toreijm relations of the Crown 

 and of advi-ing the Crown when any question 

 of imperial as distinct from colonial, interest 

 arises must owe his appointment and be re- 

 sponsible to the Crown alone, and that there- 

 fore it is not possible for the responsible min- 

 isters of the colony to share the responsibility 

 of nominating the Governor or to have a veto 

 on his appointment. The choice of the Secre- 

 tary of State for the colonies fell upon Sir 

 Henry Blake, Governor of Newfoundland, who 

 was obnoxious to the Queensland colonist*, es- 

 pecially on account of his position on the Irish 

 question. His first colonial appointment, that 

 of Governor of the Bahamas, was given as a 

 reward for his services to the Government as 

 a divisional magistrate in Ireland. When this 

 appointment was communicated to the Queens- 

 land ministers, they telegraphed a strong pro- 

 test. On November 22 Sir Henry Parkes, the 

 Premier of New South Wales, moved an ad- 

 dress to the Queen, to which the Legislative 

 Assembly agreed without a division, expressing 

 the opinion that colonial governors should be 

 selected from men who have held high office 

 or served in the Imperial Parliament, and that 

 a colonial Government should be informed of 

 an intended appointment before it is actually 

 VOL. xxvin. 26 A 



made. South Australia and the other colo- 

 nies, with the exception of Victoria, Hk- 

 supported Queensland in the position that she 

 had taken. The incident ua> do.-ed by Mr 

 Henry Blake's asking to be relieved, and the 

 acceptance of 1. :on. 



In Africa Great Britain has abandoned to 

 Germany her claims to Damaraland and Great 

 Nauiaqualand, and has contracted her sphere 

 of interests in the region where the Germans 

 have founded their colony of the Camaroons. 

 In Zanzibar the Germans compete for the su- 

 premacy once held by Great Britain. Berbera 

 and parts of the Somali coast were proclaimed 

 British territory at various dates between July, 

 1884, and January. 1886, and the powers were 

 notified, in compliance with the general act of 

 the Berlin Conference, on July 20. 1887. The 

 annexation of Zululand was notified on July 8, 

 1887. The Gold Coast protectorate has been 

 extended so far eastward as to include the 

 mouths of the Niger and the Calabar oil rivers. 

 The trade of the colonies of Gambia, Sierra 

 Leone, the Gold Coast, and Lagos is about 

 3.000,000 annually. The area of the Niger 

 protectorate, extending from the mouths of the 

 river to Tola, on the Binue, is 23,000 square 

 miles, while the Royal Niger Company has ob- 

 tained trade rights by treaty with native chiefs 

 over 260,000 square miles more, reaching up 

 the Binue to the German boundary, and up the 

 Niger as far as the rapids, and including the 

 kingdoms of Gandu and Sokoto. The protec- 

 torate over the Niger districts was notified on 

 June 5, 1885, in the "London Gazette," and 

 announced in diplomatic form six days later. 

 The recent extension northward from Cape 

 Colony into Bechuanaland and the Kalahari 

 desert has added more than 180,000 square 

 miles to the area of British South Africa, of 

 which 48,000 square miles form a Crown colo- 

 ny, and the remainder a protectorate. Accord- 

 ing to a recent treaty with Germany, the re- 

 gion north of German East Africa, bounded 

 by a line following the Sana river northwest- 

 ward, across the equator, and down to Vic- 

 toria Nyanza, has been allotted to England as 

 her sphere of influence. The coast and the 

 right of collecting transit duties have been 

 leased by the Sultan of Zanzibar to the British 

 East Africa Company. This acquisition is ex- 

 pected to give the English the control of one 

 of the richest regions of Central Africa. The 

 rainfall is deficient in the territory covered by 

 the treaty, although there is good grazing 

 country both on the coast and in the highlands 

 of Masailand. But the chief value of the 

 British section is that it gives access to the 

 rich and populous countries around Lake "\ ic- 

 toria and Lake Albert, including the Equato- 

 rial Provinces of Egypt. The total area over 

 which Great Britain exercises a commanding 

 influence in Africa, exclusive of Egypt, is not 

 less than 1,000,000 square miles, with a popu- 

 lation of 30.000.000, and a commerce of about 

 20,000,000 a year. 



