170 



CONGO, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THE. 



and sell and rent land, and the right to carry 

 on the coasting and river trade under the Ger- 

 man flag. It was stipulated that all the rights 

 extended by the Association to subjects of the 

 German Empire, and guaranteed by the con- 

 vention, should have binding force on the ac- 

 quiring party, in case the Association should 

 cede away its territory, or any portion of it. 



The Berlin Conference. The West African Con- 

 ference met at Berlin, Nov. 15. Germany, 

 Austria -Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, 

 the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, 

 Holland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and Nor- 

 way, and Turkey took part, being represented by 

 their ministers in Berlin, and some of them by 

 adjunct members. Portugal presented a memo- 

 randum, in which her claim to the mouth of the 

 Congo was advanced. Sir Edward Malet, on be- 

 half of England, reserved the Niger from the ap- 

 plication of international control, while accept- 

 ing the principle of freedom of navigation and 

 the doctrines of the Congress of Vienna, under 

 English surveillance. Shortly before the meet- 

 ing of the conference, Great Britain proclaimed 

 a protectorate over the valley of the Lower 

 Niger, up to the junction with the Benue, and 

 over the coast from Benin to Ambas Bay. 

 The memorandum set forth that the English 

 Government had furnished means for the ex- 

 ploration of the Niger, that the commerce is 



MI.ONGO MLAKO, KING OF DANDANGA. 



exclusively in the hands of the English, that 

 order and progress had been achieved by the 

 influence of English consuls, supported by the 

 presence of British frigates, and that, in the 

 interests of commerce and civilization, Great 

 Britain had, by treaty with the native rulers, 

 taken the Lower Niger under her protection. 

 Great Britain engaged to treat the ships of 

 other nations on the same footing as British 

 ships, and to levy no tax or duty on imports. 



After long discussion, the English position was 

 admitted by the Conference. A separate acte 

 de navigation was drawn up for that river, 

 in which a British river commission takes the 

 place of an international one. A proposal of 

 the English representatives to interdict the im- 

 portation of spirituous liquors into the Benue 

 region, in view of the fact that a large portion 

 of the inhabitants are Mohammedans, was not 

 accepted. The American representative de- 

 fined the limits of the commercial basin of the 

 Congo, according to the views of Henry M. 

 Stanley, who was present as an expert delegate 

 for the United States. Mr. Stanley and the In- 

 ternational Association desired to include in 

 the field of their operations the northern lakes 

 connected with the Nile system and the rich 

 territory surrounding them, occupied by pow- 

 erful native kingdoms. The Conference re- 

 duced considerably the limits proposed for the 

 neutralized territory in this direction, and also 

 the coast-line on the Atlantic. The American 

 Minister proposed that the whole territory to 

 be declared free to navigation and commerce 

 by the Conference should be neutral in time of 

 war, and that no articles constituting contra- 

 band of war should be supplied to belligerents 

 from within its borders. The region indicated 

 included the debatable strip of coast claimed 

 by Portugal and the coast-line occupied by the 

 stations of the International Association. Be- 

 tween the two, south of the mouth of the 

 Kwilu, the French had recently taken posses- 

 sion of Loango and Black Point, and were sus- 

 pected of a design to acquire ultimately the 

 coast district of the Association, and thus to 

 extend their possessions to the mouth of the 

 Congo. Baron de Courcel strenuously opposed 

 the neutrality proposal of America, and sub- 

 mitted a counter-proposal to neutralize simply 

 Congo river and its affluents. Mr. Sanford, 

 the adjunct delegate for the United States, pre- 

 sented a scheme for a railroad from Yivi to 

 Stanley Pool, with a monopoly of the route, 

 with a proposal that it be extended to the coast 

 with like guarantees. Portugal and France 

 objected to the proposal, which was de- 

 feated. 



The Congress adopted a declaration, Dec. 1, 

 establishing freedom of navigation and com- 

 merce in the commercial basin of the Congo. 

 The boundaries of the free-trade territory were 

 defined in this declaration. The Atlantic coast- 

 line extends from Sette river on the north to 

 Loge river on the south. The northern bound- 

 ary follows Sette river to its source, and then 

 runs eastward along the water-shed of the 

 Ogowe until it reaches the geographical basin 

 of the Congo. It follows the water-shed be- 

 tween the Congo on the south and the Shari 

 and the Nile on the north, and then, avoiding 

 the basin of the Nile, runs northward so as to 

 include the coast-region on the Indian Ocean 

 as far as the fifth parallel of north latitude. 

 The littoral of the Indian Ocean extends from 

 5 N. to the mouth of the Zambesi. The south- 



