364 



GERMANY. 



an Anglo-German commission to examine and 

 decide all contradictory claims was proposed. 

 In a dispatch, dated July 24, Prince Bismarck 

 refused to bind Germany by any conditions, 

 saying that the demand was unusual, and had 

 never been imposed on England in relation to 

 any of her colonies. Germany had no inten- 

 tion of establishing penal .colonies, and would 

 recognize the rights of English subjects accord- 

 ing to the principles of international law. If 

 disputes should arise, like those in the Fiji Isl- 

 ands, the German Government would show 

 the same disposition to arrange the difficulties 

 that the English Government evinced in that 

 case. Lord Granville explained that the word 

 " security " was used only to express the wishes 

 of the British Government, which was ready to 

 enter into a mutual agreement with Germany 

 respecting penal settlements or to accept the 

 verbal assurance given, and that the appoint- 

 ment of commissioners seemed the proper way 

 to settle boundary and other disputes. About 

 this time the German consul at the Cape wrote 

 that Lord Derby was spurring on the Cape 

 Government to annex the entire unoccupied 

 coast of southwest Africa. On the 17th of Au- 

 gust the German ambassador was instructed to 

 inform the English Government that the an- 

 nexation resolve of the Cape Parliament created 

 a difficulty for the German Government, as it 

 had adopted the same resolve. A telegram 

 meanwhile arrived, reporting that on the 7th 

 the commander of the Wolf had raised the Ger- 

 man flag over all the coast except Walfish Bay. 

 On the 19th a dispatch of Count Hatzfeldt's 

 announced that by virtue of cessions obtained 

 by German subjects from the native chiefs of 

 Namaqua and Damaralands the region north 

 of Angra Pequefia as far as the Portuguese 

 boundary at Cape Frio, including the district 

 surrounding Walfish Bay not subject to Eng- 

 lish sovereign rights, was taken under German 

 protection. The Government could not refuse 

 the demand for protection, as the treaties with 

 the native rulers were in due form. The reso- 

 lution of the Cape Government was therefore 

 embarrassing, as it raised a claim of English 

 sovereignty over the same territory. It was 

 not expected, in view of the official declara- 

 tions that the Orange river marked the north- 

 ern limit of the English possessions, with the 

 exception of a small district at Walfish Bay, 

 that an attempt would be made just now, in 

 competition with German aims, to extend Eng- 

 lish sovereignty beyond the designated bound- 

 aries. On the 26th the German Government 

 complained that the reply to its note of Dec. 

 31, 1883, had been delayed six months, and the 

 time employed to prepare rival British annexa- 

 tions. While the German Government waited 

 in confidence for an answer, the English Colo- 

 nial Minister in telegrams published in Cape 

 Town encouraged the Cape Government to the 

 resolutions that are intended to thwart the 

 development of the German enterprises. The 

 theory of the annexation of extensive unex- 



plored coast and inland regions'by a simple de- 

 cree from a distance was declared to be op- 

 posed to the law of nations and traditional 

 custom. The German representative was con- 

 fidentially informed that the British Govern- 

 ment intended to disallow the action of the 

 Cape Parliament. The Cape Government sub- 

 sequently reduced the annexations to the dis- 

 trict immediately surrounding Walfish Bay, 

 which had been incorporated in Cape Colony. 

 Lord Granville, in an interview with the Ger- 

 man charge d? affaires, Baron von Plessen, at- 

 tributed the whole difficulty to a misunder- 

 standing. An English note of September 22 

 took cognizance of the hoisting of the German 

 flag on the coast between latitude 26 and Cape 

 Frio, and expressed a welcome to Germany as 

 a neighbor in South Africa if she intended to 

 found there a colony or a protectorate of a 

 territorial character. The islands of Hollams 

 Bird and Mercury Island, as well as those near 

 Angra Pequefia, were claimed as British terri- 

 tory. The complaints of the German Govern- 

 ment were declared to be due to a misunder- 

 standing, due to a lack of knowledge of the 

 obscure details of British colonial legislation 

 and history. The German Government was 

 asked whether it intended to exercise a terri- 

 torial administration, or merely protect its sub- 

 jects in that region, as, in the case of its assum- 

 ing sovereign powers of a territorial character, 

 the statutory jurisdiction of the Cape courts 

 over British subjects in that part of Africa 

 would cease. This query was answered in the 

 affirmative, and the English proposal to appoint 

 a mixed commission to decide international dis- 

 putes was accepted. The commission took up 

 first the question whether the Cape Govern- 

 ment possessed any sovereign rights or its as- 

 signees any legal title to the guano-islands off 

 the coast of Angra Pequefia. 



Cameroons, Bimbia, and Little Popo. Of the 

 numerous and constantly increasing commer- 

 cial stations of German firms, on the west 

 coast of Africa, the most extensive are those 

 of the Hamburg house of Woermann, which 

 has been established in Liberia since 1852, and 

 in Gaboon and Batanga since 1862. The Woer- 

 manns started a station in Cameroons in 1868, 

 and have acquired a large share of the trade in 

 this and other rich coast districts between Ga- 

 boon and the Niger. From Sierra Leone to 

 the Congo there were sixty factories, belong- 

 ing to fourteen Hamburg firms. Several Bre- 

 men houses were also represented. The un- 

 occupied coast districts developed by German 

 traders afforded an opportunity for the reali- 

 zation of a scheme of establishing protectorates 

 in the wake of German trade, wherever Ger- 

 mans have acquired grants of land from native 

 rulers. Dr. Nachtigal, then filling the post of 

 consul at Tunis, was appointed Consul-General 

 of the West Coast of Africa, and was sent out 

 in May with several officers on the gunboat 

 Move, for the purpose of carrying out the 

 secret plans of the German Government, his 



