518 



MADAGASCAR. 



parried by the raising of all sequestrations placed up- 

 on their property, to their respective subjects who, 

 prior to the conclusion of peace, compromised them- 

 selves by serving the other contracting party. 



17. The actually existing treaties and conventions 

 between the French Kepublic and the Queen are ex- 

 pressly confirmed in so far as they may not be con- 

 trary to stipulations of the present treaty. 



18. The present treaty has been drawn up in French 

 and Malagasy, the two versions having exactly the 

 same sense, so that the two texts may be legally cited 

 in every respect. 



19. The present treaty shall be ratified within a 

 period of three months. 



A secret convention was signed the same 

 day, by which Madagascar bound herself to 

 make no cession of a port or of territory to any 

 other foreign power. A dispute at once arose 

 between the French, and the Hovas and their 

 English friends, as to whether the relations es- 

 tablished by the treaty were those of a pro- 

 tectorate. M. de Freycinet asserted that 

 France really acquired a political protectorate 

 over Madagascar, but the Hovas declared that 

 no right of a protectorate of any kind had been 

 ceded. 



After the signature of the treaty, Rainilaia- 

 rivony objected to certain clauses as being too 

 comprehensive, and sent a draft of an explana- 

 tory note to Gen. Willoughby, directing him to 

 obtain from the French plenipotentiaries an 

 explanatory letter of like import. The French 

 representatives accepted the proposed qualifica- 

 tions, and gave a note to that effect to Gen. 

 Willoughby on Jan. 9, 1886, on the reception 

 of which he ratified the treaty on behalf of the 

 Queen on the following day. 



Fresh Disputes with France. M. le Myre de 

 Vilers, who was appointed resident-general 

 at Antananarivo, arrived in June. He estab- 

 lished himself in the capital, with an escort of 

 36 French soldiers, and held weekly confer- 

 ences with the Prime Minister. His relations 

 with the Hovas were seemingly very cordial. 

 They accepted the French protectorate with 

 apparent satisfaction, and professed a willing- 

 ness to refer all external questions to the French 

 resident. At the same time they strove to 

 thwart all French plans and escape the prac- 

 tical exercise of French control or influence 

 entirely. M. de Freycinet, soon after the con- 

 clusion of the treaty, disclaimed any intention 

 of placing obstacles in the way of the free de- 

 velopment of private interests in the island, 

 whatever may be the nationalities concerned. 

 He said to the Madagascar committee of the 

 French Chamber that the treaty would really 

 establish a political protectorate, but without 

 affecting existing treaties, and that the French 

 resident, though not entitled to interfere in 

 internal affairs, would so act as to develop 

 French influence. The protectorate that the 

 Hovas sought to evade was obtained on the 

 condition of acknowledging the sovereign as 

 Queen of all Madagascar. When the French 

 began to establish themselves in the Bay of 

 Diego Suarez, to build barracks and arsenals, 

 and to strengthen the garrison, the Hovas took 



measures, in virtue of the sovereign rights that 

 were now recognized by France, to assert their 

 rights over the Sakalavas, who had never been 

 more than half subjugated, and who had been 

 supported in their resistance by the French. 

 They established military stations among the 

 hostile population, and endeavored to reduce 

 the northern half of the island to their sway, 

 in order to make it impossible for the French, 

 in the event of the renewal of hostilities, to 

 march upon Antananarivo. The French aimed 

 to establish settlements among the friendly 

 population of the northern half of the island. 

 This region is the only part of Madagascar suit- 

 able at present for French colonization, and is 

 of special value to the French because it con- 

 tains rich grazing-lands from which the colony 

 of Reunion can be supplied with cattle. They 

 hastened to establish a military station and port 

 at Diego Suarez in order to support the Saka- 

 lavas by their presence, and prevent the Hovas 

 from seizing the country and defeating their 

 colonial objects. The treaty of Dec. if, 1885, 

 empowered the French to take possession of as 

 much of the coast-land on the bay as should be 

 necessary for their installations. This was one 

 of the features in the treaty to which Rainai- 

 arivony objected on the ground that the stipu- 

 lation was too indefinite and elastic. In th( 

 explanatory letter, which the Malagasy Go^ 

 ernment affirmed to be of the nature of an ap 

 pendix to the treaty or protocol, without which 

 the treaty would not have been ratified, the 

 territory skirting the bay ceded to France was 

 limited to 1 mile on the southern and western 

 sides and four miles on the northern side. This 

 concession in particular, and the entire explana- 

 tory letter, which confined the scope of the 

 resident's authority to external politics, were 

 repudiated by M. de Freycinet as soon as they 

 were communicated to him. The French aft- 

 erward affirmed that they could claim under 

 the treaty any or all of the territory up to the 

 mountains encircling the bay, and announced 

 that the French territory would actually be 

 limited to ten kilometres from the shore. 



Gen. Willoughby and the English mission- 

 aries and speculators encouraged the crafty 

 Prime Minister in his efforts to render the 

 treaty a dead letter. Before the French resi- 

 dent had been long in Antananarivo, a question 

 arose that was more serious than that of the 

 delimitation at Diego Suarez. An English 

 company was found ready to advance the 10,- 

 000,000 francs of war indemnity, on the condi- 

 tion that the administration of the customs 

 should be handed over to them until they had 

 recovered the loan out of the part assigned for 

 the purpose. They were also granted a con- 

 cession to establish a bank. About the same 

 time Gen. Digby Willoughby was dispatched 

 on a mission to the governments of Europe 

 with a commission as ambassador of the Queen 

 of Madagascar. On August 31, M. le Myre dp 

 Vilers had an interview with Rainaiarivony in 

 which he informed the Prime Minister (1) that 



