ENGLAND AND FRANCE ON THE. NIGER.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 146, 17 December 1897, Page 4

ENGLAND AND FRANCE ON THE. NIGER.

■«. Cable g ,rams received during the past few days ho 1< d out hopes of a speedy adjustment of the conflicting claims upon large tracts of W( ajt Africa advanced by France and Great 7 Britain respectively. Some six weeks ago tla c political horizon in that part of the worldj was far from clear, and although there was m o immediate prospect of open hostilities the v ewspaper presses of Paris and London wer* emitting ominous growls, and the agei its of France and England on the Niger wef c resting on their arms while their res pective Governments strove to settle by dir plomacy disputes which had run dangero> jsly near to actual war. Few, if any, * eally believed in the possibility of hostili1 ties between France and Great Britain, but many causes conspired to create a fear of unpleasant complications. Even these lighter storm olouds seem now to be rolling away, and the delegates of the two Powers are with more or less success contriving to hammer out a compromise which will safeguard the interests and respect the amour propre of both. To understand the recent differences and the present negotiations it is necessary to glance back over the history of French and British expansion in West Africa, The scramble for the spoil has been going on with increasing intensity for twenty odd years. If we take the conclusion of the Ashanti War of 1874 as our starting-point, we find the French in possession of a small colony on the lower Senegal, while the 6uly European Power really occupying any of the coast of the Gulf of Guinea between the Senegal and Congo was Great Britain. It is true that there had been European trading stations on the coast for over 200 years, but r they dropped out with the decline of the slave trade, and Great Britain alone retained her foothold. In 1876 the French made an unsuccessful attempt to expand their possessions on the Senegal by the absorption of the British colony of Gambia. The real commencemenp of the present struggle, however, took place in 1879, when a definite plan for the development of Senegambia was laid before the French Parliament, and at the same time Sir George Goldie started the Royal Niger Company under the name of the United Africa Company. The French now began to extend their occupation and sphere of influence by way of the Senegal River along the Upper Niger, while the British expended their energies on the Lower Niger. French advances in the west were replied to by British counter-develop-ments under the company at tho eastern end. In 1886 France acquired Portugal's shadowy rights to Futa Jallon, the territory between Senegambia and Sierra Leone, and in the same year the Company received its charter, and by treaty extended its influence northward to the Empire of Sokoto. Three years later France and England made an agreement which secured the former on the Senegal, and out off

Giambia and Sierra Leone, two British coast colonies, from the trade of the inland country by converting their hinterlands into French territory. This seems to have been Lhe first pronounced step on the part of the French towards realising their present policy jf confiniug Great Britain to the coast, and ippropriating to themselves the whole of the valuable " hinterland," upon which the :oast settlements entirely depend for their prosperity. At this time— namely, 1889— French expansion in the Senegal Valley had actually reached Segou, an outpost on the Upper Niger, while the British stations on the lower river did not extend quite so high as Bussa, the 1500 miles of river between Bussa and Se"gou being almost unknown md practically free from all white influencerhe Niger is navigable from its mouth for ibout 500. miles to. the rapids just below Bussa, while above Bussa for about another 500 miles to Ansongo it is little more than i series of rapids. Above Ansongo, howjver, for over 1000 miles the river forms a magbificent inland waterway, with Timbucioo as its centre. Eight years ago, as we bave already remarked, this stretch of river ivas to all intents and purposes unknown. Soon after the conclusion of the treaty which confined Gambia and Sierra Leone to their present limits, the Niger Company definitely jarried the British sphere on the left side of the Niger as far northwards as the frontier )f the dependencies of Sokoto— that is to say, to a line running from Barua, on Lake Chad, to Say, on the Niger. Before tracing the French movements of the last few years— movements which are immediately responsible for the present trouble— it is ivell to note that the coast line running east from Senegal is divided up as follows :— Sierra Leone (British), Liberia (Free Republic), Ivory Coast (French), Gold Coast (British), Togoland (German), Dahomey (French), Lagos and Niger territories (British), and then the German Cameroons, which separate Nigeria from French Congo. The latter already extends far north into the Soudan, and the French aspire to join it with Senegambia by way of Lake Chad on the west, and with Leontieff's new Government, the so-called Equatorial Districts of Abyssinia, on the east. This is caid to form anly one part of a huge dream of empire which shall embrace Tunis-Algeria, Senegambia, and Congo, and have its centre in Lake Chad. To effect this France must acquire the hinterland of all foreign settlements, and so gradually cause their trade to die out, that they may fall an easier prey to the voracity of the Franco-African Empire of the future. Here it is worth noting that in Great Britain scarcely anyone knows or cares about the value of West Africa, whereas in France there is the keenest popular interest taken in anything African. French newspapers teem with articles on Senegambia and the Soudan, a strong Jingo Colonial Party is always at Ministers' elbows to urge them on, brave explorers are continually publishing cleverly written books on the place, and in every way the Empire fever is fed among the people. It is little wonder, then, that during the last eight years France has made a marked advance towards the accomplishment of her aims. The key to the situation is the Niger, for, as an able writer on West Africa has declared, "were the Niger from source to mouth in the hands of any single nation, that nation would command in time the whole of the Western Soudan." France and England are the only competitors for this commanding position, Germany's interest being too small, and her recent treaty with France no less than that of 1888 with England precluding her from entering seriously into the field. Since 1889 France has pushed on down the Niger and occupied Timbuctoo in force ; slie has also worked up at the other end from Dahomey northwards to posts at Bussa on the Niger, j only 200 miles north of Lokoja, the Company's main station. French officers have also made occupations on the right bank from Bussa to Say, and threaten soon to hold both hanks as far as Say, and the right bank as far as Bussa, thus leaving only 500 miles out of the Niger's 2000 to Great Britain. As for transport in French territory, steamers run from St. Louis, at the mouth of the Senegal, to Kayes, a distance of 900 kilometres. From Kayes to Bammakou, on the Niger, a railroad is being constructed, while it is almost impossible, except up the Niger, to move in British territory without having one's goods carried on porters' heads. On the coast, also, Frenoh development is very marked — Assinee has grown into the Ivory Coast, and Dahomey has become a nourishing colony, while the British settlements, except Lagos and Nigeria, have been cut off from access to the interior and so despoiled of their trade. The British have doubtless themselves to thank for much of this, but the French have apparently trespassed largely upon their neighbours' preserves. They have attempted to substitute the system of piracy known as ''effective occupation " for the more legitimate method of treaties with native rulers. They have also refused to recognise treaties made by the Niger Company unless they were officially notified of them by the British Government, and in several other ways have severely strained their relations with Great Britain. The French, on the other hand, accuse, rightly or wrongly, the British Company of intriguing with the Mahommedau chief Samory and other natives against the French. The climax of the trouble between the two countries was reached when the French sent a sort of punitive expedition to the hinterland of Lagos against a district which was allied to ' Britain by a treaty made last year by Colonel Lugard, and the two Governments seem to have recognised that some definite arrangement must be made to avoid possible misadventures. Commissioners have therefore met in Paris to complete the negotiations and delimitations begun last year. The real points at issue are, whether France is to monopolise the hinterland and by " effective occupation" override British treaties with the natives, or whether Great Britain is to retain her access to the interior and check French advances.

Mr. W. F. Molesworth, of Warrnambool, is gazetted a Commissioner of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in Victoria.