Part 40 (1/2)
Among its many benefits may be reckoned the virtual settlement of long and tangled disputes for supremacy in Uganda. We have no s.p.a.ce in which to detail the rivalries of French and British missionaries and agents at the Court of King M'tesa and his successor M'w.a.n.ga, or the futile attempt of Dr. Peters to thrust in German influence. Even the Anglo-German agreement of 1890 did not end the perplexities of the situation; for though the British East Africa Company (to which a charter had been granted in 1888) thenceforth had the chief influence on the northern sh.o.r.es of Victoria Nyanza, the British Government declined to a.s.sume any direct responsibility for so inaccessible a district.
Thanks, however, to the activity and tact of Captain Lugard, difficulties were cleared away, with the result that the large and fertile territory of Uganda (formerly included in the Khedive's dominions) became a British Protectorate in August 1894 (see Chapter XVII).
The significance of the events just described will be apparent when it is remembered that British East Africa, inclusive of Uganda and the Upper Nile basin, comprises altogether 670,000 square miles, to a large extent fertile, and capable of settlement by white men in the more elevated tracts of the interior. German East Africa contains 385,000 square miles, and is also destined to have a future that will dwarf that of many of the secondary States of to-day.
The prosperity of British East Africa was greatly enhanced by the opening of a railway, 580 miles long, from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza in 1902. Among other benefits, it has cut the ground from under the slave-trade, which used to depend on the human beast of burden for the carriage of all heavy loads[437].
[Footnote 437: For the progress and prospects of this important colony, see Sir G. Portal, _The British Mission to Uganda in 1893_; Sir Charles Elliot, _British East Africa_ (1905); also Lugard, _Our East African Empire_; Sir H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_.]
The Anglo-German agreement of 1890 also cleared up certain questions between Britain and Germany relating to South-West Africa which had made bad blood between the two countries. In and after the year 1882 the attention of the colonial party in Germany was turned to the district north of the Orange River, and in the spring of the year 1883 Herr Luderitz founded a factory and hoisted the German flag at Angra Pequena.
There are grounds for thinking that that district was coveted, not so much for its intrinsic value, which is slight, as because it promised to open up communications with the Boer Republics. Lord Granville ventured to express his doubts on that subject to Count Herbert Bismarck, whom the Chancellor had sent to London in the summer of 1884 in order to take matters out of the hands of the too Anglophil amba.s.sador, Count Munster.
Anxious to show his mettle, young Bismarck fired up, and informed Lord Granville that his question was one of mere curiosity; later on he informed him that it was a matter which did not concern him[438].
[Footnote 438: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii.
p. 120.]
It must be admitted, however, that the British Government had acted in a dilatory and ineffective manner. Sir Donald Currie had introduced a deputation to Lord Derby, Colonial Minister in the Gladstone Cabinet, which warned him seriously as to German aims on the coast of Damaraland; in reply to which that phlegmatic Minister stated that Germany was not a colonising Power, and that the annexation of those districts would be resented by Great Britain as an ”unfriendly act[439].” In November 1883 the German amba.s.sador inquired whether British protection would be accorded to a few German settlers on the coast of Damaraland. No decisive answer was given, though the existence of British interests there was affirmed. Then, when Germany claimed the right to annex it, a counter-claim was urged from Whitehall (probably at the instigation of the Cape Government) that the land in question was a subject of close interest to us, as it might be annexed in the future. It was against this belated and illogical plea that Count Bismarck was sent to lodge a protest; and in August 1884 Germany clinched the matter by declaring Angra Pequena and surrounding districts to be German territory. (See note at the end of the chapter.)
[Footnote 439: See Sir D. Currie's paper on South Africa to the members of the Royal Colonial Inst.i.tute, April 10, 1888 (_Proceedings_, vol.
xix. p. 240).]
In this connection we may remark that Angra Pequena had recently figured as a British settlement on German maps, including that of Stieler of the year 1882. Walfisch Bay, farther to the north, was left to the Union Jack, that flag having been hoisted there by official sanction in 1878 owing to the urgent representations of Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor of Cape Colony. The rest of the coast was left to Germany; the Gladstone Government informed that of Berlin that no objection would be taken to her occupation of that territory. Great annoyance was felt at the Cape at what was looked on as an uncalled for surrender of British claims, especially when the Home Government failed to secure just treatment for the British settlers. Sir Charles Dilke states in his _Problems of Greater Britain_ that only the constant protests of the Cape Ministry prevented the authorities at Whitehall from complying with German unceasing requests for the cession of Walfisch Bay, doubtless as an item for exchange during the negotiations of 1889-90[440].
[Footnote 440: _Op. cit._ vol. i. p. 502.]
We may add here that in 1886 Germany defined the northern limits of ”South-West Africa”--such was the name of the new colony--by an agreement with Portugal; and in 1890 an article of the Anglo-German agreement above referred to gave an eastward extension of that northern border which brought it to the banks of the River Zambesi.
The British Government took a firmer stand in a matter that closely concerned the welfare of Natal and the relations of the Transvaal Republic to Germany. In 1884 some German prospectors sought to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay in Zululand and to hoist the German flag. The full truth on this interesting matter is not yet known; it formed a pendant to the larger question of Delagoa Bay, which must be briefly noticed here.
Friction had arisen between Great Britain and Portugal over conflicting claims respecting Delagoa Bay and its adjoining lands; and in this connection it may be of interest to note that the Disraeli Ministry had earlier missed an opportunity of buying out Portuguese claims. The late Lord Carnarvon stated that, when he took the portfolio for colonial affairs in that Ministry, he believed the purchase might have been effected for a comparatively small sum. Probably the authorities at Lisbon were aroused to a sense of the potential value of their Laurenco Marquez domain by the scramble for Africa which began early in the eighties; and it must be regretted that the British Government, with the lack of foresight which has so often characterised it, let slip the opportunity of securing Delagoa Bay until its value was greatly enhanced. It then agreed to refer the questions in dispute to the arbitration of General MacMahon, President of the French Republic (1875). As has generally happened when foreign potentates have adjudicated on British interests, his verdict was wholly hostile to us.
It even a.s.signed to Portugal a large district to the south of Delagoa Bay which the Portuguese had never thought of claiming from its native inhabitants, the Tongas[441]. In fact, a narrative of all the gains which have accrued to Portugal in Delagoa Bay, and thereafter to the people who controlled its railway to Pretoria, would throw a sinister light on the connection that has too often subsisted between the n.o.ble theory of arbitration and the profitable practice of peacefully willing away, or appropriating, the rights and possessions of others. Portugal soon proved to be unable to avail herself of the opportunities opened up by the gift unexpectedly awarded her by MacMahon. She was unable to control either the Tongas or the Boers.
[Footnote 441: Sir C. Dilke, _Problems of Greater Britain_, vol. i. pp.
553-556.]
England having been ruled out, there was the chance for some other Power to step in and acquire St. Lucia Bay, one of the natural outlets of the southern part of the Transvaal Republic. It is an open secret that the forerunners of the ”colonial party” in Germany had already sought to open up closer relations with the Boer Republics. In 1876 the President of the Transvaal, accompanied by a Dutch member of the Cape Parliament, visited Berlin, probably with the view of reciprocating those advances.
They had an interview with Bismarck, the details of which are not fully known. Nothing, however, came of it at the time, owing to Bismarck's preoccupation in European affairs. Early in the ”eighties,” the German colonial party, then beginning its campaign, called attention repeatedly to the advantages of gaining a foothold in or near Delagoa Bay; but the rise of colonial feeling in Germany led to a similar development in the public sentiment of Portugal, and indeed of all lands; so that, by the time that Bismarck was won over to the cause of Teutonic Expansion, the Portuguese refused to barter away any of their ancient possessions. This probably accounts for the concentration of German energies on other parts of the South African coast, which, though less valuable in themselves, might serve as _points d'appui_ for German political agents and merchants in their future dealings with the Boers, who were then striving to gain control over Bechua.n.a.land. The points selected by the Germans for their action were on the coast of Damaraland, as already stated, and St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, a position which President Burgers had striven to secure for the Transvaal in 1878.
In reference to St. Lucia Bay our narrative must be shadowy in outline owing to the almost complete secrecy with which the German Government wisely shrouds a failure. The officials and newspaper writers of Germany have not yet contracted the English habit of proclaiming their intentions beforehand and of parading before the world their recriminations in case of a fiasco. All that can be said, then, with certainty is that in the autumn of 1884 a German trader named Einwold attempted to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay and to prepare the way for the recognition of German claims if all went well. In fact, he could either be greeted as a _Mehrer des Reichs_, or be disowned as an unauthorised busybody.
We may here cite pa.s.sages from the Diary of Dr. Busch, Bismarck's secretary, which prove that the State took a lively interest in Einwold's adventure. On February 25, 1885, Busch had a conversation with Herr Andrae, in the course of which they ”rejoiced at England's difficulties in the Sudan, and I expressed the hope that Wolseley's head would soon arrive in Cairo, nicely pickled and packed.” Busch then referred to British friction with Russia in Afghanistan and with France in Burmah, and then put the question to Andrae, ”'Have we given up South Africa; or is the Lucia Bay affair still open?' He said that the matter was still under consideration[442].”
[Footnote 442: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii.
p. 132.]
It has since transpired that the British Government might have yielded to pressure from Berlin, had not greater pressure been exercised from Natal and from British merchants and s.h.i.+powners interested in the South African trade. Sir Donald Currie, in the paper already referred to, stated that he could easily have given particulars of the means which had to be used in order to spur on the British Government to decisive action. Unfortunately he was discreetly reticent, and merely stated that not only St. Lucia Bay, but the whole of the coast between Natal and the Delagoa Bay district was then in question, and that the Gladstone Ministry was finally induced to telegraph instructions to Cape Town for the despatch of a cruiser to a.s.sert British claims to St. Lucia Bay.
H.M.S. _Goshawk_ at once steamed thither, and hoisted the British flag, by virtue of a treaty made with a Zulu chief in 1842. Then ensued the usual interchange of angry notes between Berlin and London; Bismarck and Count Herbert sought to win over, or browbeat, Lord Rosebery, then Colonial Minister. In this, however, he failed; and the explanation of the failure given to Busch was that Lord Rosebery was too clever for him and ”quite mesmerised him.” On May 7, 1885, Germany gave up her claims to that important position, in consideration of gaining at the expense of England in the Cameroons[443]. Here again a pa.s.sage from Busch's record deserves quotation. In a conversation which he had with Bismarck on January 5, 1886, he put the question:--
”Why have we not been able to secure the Santa Lucia Bay?” I asked. ”Ah!” he replied, ”it is not so valuable as it seemed to be at first. People who were pursuing their own interests on the spot represented it to be of greater importance than it really was. And then the Boers were not disposed to take any proper action in the matter. The bay would have been valuable to us if the distance from the Transvaal were not so great. And the English attached so much importance to it that they declared it was impossible for them to give it up, and they ultimately conceded a great deal to us in New Guinea and Zanzibar. In colonial matters we must not take too much in hand at a time, and we already have enough for a beginning.
We must now hold rather with the English, while, as you know, we were formerly more on the French side[444]. But, as the last elections in France show, every one of any importance there had to make a show of hostility to us.”