THE GERMAN OFFER IN AFRICA.
THE newspapers of Wednesday contained two state- 1.. ments of the highest importance to all who desire to understand the present position of Great Britain. The first of these is the speech of M. Ribot upon the Egyptian Conversion scheme, a speech full of suppressed fury ; and the second the statement in the Standard, and in fuller detail in the St. James's Gazette, as to the ultimatum—Wr it is nothing less—submitted by the German Government in Africa. We may, we imagine, assume with confidence that the latter is, if not directly inspired, at least official enough to form a fair basis for discussion ; and if so, its importance can hardly be over-rated. According to our contemporaries, the negotiations have now reached a point at which they must either be broken off, or English- men must carefully and temperately weigh the demands of the German Government, which are substantially these. The Germans, influenced, as we believe, but as they do not publicly acknowledge, by a hope of obtaining the Congo State, and so acquiring an African Empire stretching from the Indian Ocean to the South Atlantic—a real India in magnificence of area and potential resources—refuse absolutely to surrender their claim to the Hinterland, or back-country, as the Americans call it, of their East African dependency. They insist that their dominion should be extended westward from the coast until it marches with the eastern frontier of the Congo State, not, indeed, through its whole length, but for a length sufficient for all purposes of trade, and of entrance at a future time. If we, who alone can resist it, will concede this claim, every other arrangement we can wish for will be cheerfully made. The British East African Company may absorb Witu, which squeezes it to the North, and may stretch its dominion over the northern coast of the Victoria Nyanza, and the kingdom of Uganda, and the rich territory round the head-waters of the Nile ; may, in fact, carve out for itself to the northward and westward a dominion of any magnitude which its managers think themselves able to administer and defend. In the South, again, the South African Company, before which such a great future lies, may expand itself northward through Nyassaland, and hold the Stevenson road, which connects the Nyassa and Tanganyika Lakes. Both Companies, in fact, acquire the sovereignty of great Kingdoms which, so long as Germany and England are agreed, are entirely beyond attack from any external power, which are believed to be marvellously full of resources in trees, minerals, and culturable plains, and which are populated by races who in the main are ready, if once guaranteed their pay, to cultivate and to trade. Even the fighting tribes, be it remembered, in Africa are not like the Red Indians, but will, if once subdued, settle down and perform, in return for plenty and exemption from attack, a modicum of daily labour. The single drawback is that the two dominions will be separated by a German territory calculated to be a hundred and twenty (?) miles broad ; and even for this drawback, the extent of which is entirely admitted, Berlin offers a practical alleviation. A right of way, under all circumstances and for all purposes —including, we presume, though we do not know, the passage of troops—is to be guaranteed by treaty to Great Britain, with the special privilege of exemption from any sort of dues while in transit. The two British dominions will not touch, but a legal bridge is erected over the great separating ravine.
Our countrymen will, we think, on consideration, do well to get over their first feeling of annoyance, and sanction Lord Salisbury's acceptance of that offer. It is a very large one in reality, the alternative may be exceedingly unpleasant, and there is a point which the public may miss, and which makes the legal bridge far more defensible than at first sight appears. It is customary to say that a right of way through the territory of another Power is illusory, because the moment there is a quarrel it is taken away; and that is usually true. It is not, however, true in this instance. The Germans could not, in the teeth of the Treaty, close the legal bridge by force unless they had resolved upon hostilities ; and with hostilities the British power of decisive action would suddenly revive. The Fleet would cut the Germans off from all access to their African colony, and its ports would become our guarantee for the freedom of the road. That is to say—for we wish to be even tiresome upon this point—we should possess the legal bride in time of peace by the right of treaties, and in time of war by the right of our ability to bombard or retain or fine ports without which the entire Hinterland would be as worthless to its owners as the desert behind Angra Pequena. On the other hand, as the Imperial Government keeps its engagements, we should be set free from the risk of collision, which, as competition grows sharper, will speedily become serious, and possess, instead of " spheres of influence " as undefined in boundary as in character, dominions as regular as Indian Presidencies, which are not the less ours because they include, scattered here and there, considerable Native States. That is a welcome relief from a grave embarrassment, and one which will immensely simplify the task of governing, more especially if the two States can agree, as is possible, upon a local treaty of extradition so strict as to make of all European Africa a continent under one and the same system of Police. As to the extent of our new territory, there are perhaps three men alive who could explain it with perfect accuracy ; but these facts, at all events, are clear. We shall possess a South African Dominion as large as Western Europe, and an East African Dominion which may be expanded at will from the Equator to Abyssinia on one side, and to Khartoum upon the other, there being no European with either the power or the will to interfere. It is enough in all conscience, and we only trust that it may not prove too much, and that we may not find a little late that the weary Titan has at last been overloaded.
Moreover, we gain another advantage which we can scarcely doubt has weighed with Lord Salisbury and the British negotiators in Berlin more heavily than the hope of acquiring any African territory whatever. It is im- possible to read the speech delivered by the French Foreign Minister on Tuesday upon the Egyptian conver- sion, without perceiving that the French Government barely tolerates the British occupation of Egypt—indeed, does not tolerate, but only waits its opportunity to demand our withdrawal under menace of immediate war. Nothing that has been accomplished in Egypt—the defeat of the Mandi, the re-establishment of order, the refilling of the Treasury, or the rehabilitation of credit—gives us in their eyes any claim to remain there, even for an hour. Indeed, our success is the first reason why we should depart. If, says the French Minister, England has been so successful,. her guardianship is no longer needful, for Egypt can stand. alone. All that is necessary to Cairo is more soldiers, and therefore the saving effected by conversion must not be- applied as England wishes, but be accumulated. for a future time when England, as M. Ribot calculates, will have departed. Indeed, England has no claims whatever. It is- France, France, France who in Egypt represents Europe, and therefore civilisation ; France who maintains that " national glory," the Ghizeh Museum ; France, "who will show as much tenacity in reminding England that she- cannot seize upon the Valley of the Nile as England shows in deferring the execution of the engagements she- has taken." M. Ribot, we may remind our readers, is- not a gasconader in politics, but a man supposed to- be unusually moderate ; but if he were otherwise, no French statesman in his senses, with the League of Peace menacing his country, would use language like that about a Power like Great Britain, unless he were very angry indeed, and knew, moreover, that the directing. classes shared in his irritation. At present France can only instigate the Sultan to demand the evacuation of the country, and M. Ribot almost confesses that he is doing this ; but she is nursing her wrath, and, when the opportunity arrives, means to exact the fulfil- ment of British pledges, even if she does not take Britain's place herself. It is folly, under such circum- stances, to lose any ally in Egyptian affairs, and Germany can be, next to Italy, the most efficient one. Germany, on the other hand, caring little about Egypt for itself, has all along let it be understood that she was willing to side with England or with France as to the pledge to evacuate, according to the treatment she received in her project of founding in Africa a great Colonial Empire. If she were not the ally of England in the South, England might shift for herself in the North, and see if Italy alone could enable her to continue her occupation of the Nile Valley. Alliance. in Colonial affairs signifies in German ears direct help in the specific project of stretching German dominion in Africa from sea to sea ; and the British, Government is, in fact, though not in form, offered the alternative of agreeing to German wishes as to the Hinterland, or being- left alone face to face with France over a question upon which France is sensitive and unreasonable almost to the point of casting prudence to the winds. As we cannot honourably quit Egypt until our work is done, and it is not done while there is any danger of a new invasion from the South, or any chance of Egypt relapsing into bank- ruptcy, it is necessary to make concessions, and we do not know that, fairly judged, the concessions are greater than the price. We give up the unbroken character of our African dominion, present and future, but we gain for the present security and vast estates, and for the future the right to move northward up the Nile, which has always been, and will always be, on the eastern side of Africa, the true basis of dominion. If our countrymen are wise, they will cry aloud, after their self -depreciatoryfashion, that most of their hopes are frustrated, and that all their dignity is prostrate in the dust, but will accept the Treaty Lord Salisbury is said to have arranged, and proceed without more ado to make its advantages solid. The steady march of the English northward from Natal, the enlistment of five thousand Zulu troops, and the floating of a dozen steamers upon the Lakes, will be better guarantees for their posi- tion and their rights than any number of concessions wrung from reluctant rivals in the preoccupation of the hour,— the distribution of Africa.
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