TREATY WITH MENELIK

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1618, 4 March 1903, Page 77 (Supplement)

TREATY WITH MENELIK

AN IMPORTANT AGREEMENT

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON. January 2.

At tile time of the Fa sir oil a fuss it was rumoured that Menelik. “King of Kings of Ethiopia,” was intriguing with the French in their scheme to get a footing on the upper reaches of the Nile. “Tempera mutantur.” and the “treaty between the United. Kingdom and Ethiopia.” which was signed at Adis Ababa on 15th May last by Menelik and LieutenantColonel Harrington, and published as a blue book last Friday, is the best proof

of the satisfactory relationship now ex-' isting between the ruler of Abyssinia and ourselves., That relationship is. mainly, due to the tact of Colonel Harrington/ who during his four years’ residence' a's British Agent at-Menelik’s court has convinced the Lion of Judah hot only of our friendly intention's but also - of our power. By 'the treaty- a frontier between the Soudan and Ethiopia- has •been agreed on, which, while giving 'Alnveniia a good slice of territory, secures, for us the points of greatest importance for the safety and development of the Soudan. and enables us further to check tho slave trade in. those regions. The treaty; provides for the lease to the Government of the Soudan of an “enclave” in tho neighbourhood of Itang on the Baro river, “to be administered and occupied as a commercial station so long as the Soudan is under the Anglo-Egyptian . Government.” The district has a large trade, particularly in ivory. By another article of the treaty Abyssinia grants oermission for the construction of a" SouuanUganda - railway across her territory. This link of the Cape to Cairo line can be made more easily up the valley of the Blue Nile, across parts of Abyssinia to the north shores of Victoria Nyanza, than through the swampy regions of the White Nile as originally proposed. The most important article of the treaty to the Soudan is the third by which Menelik engages not to allow the construction of any works across the Blue Nile, Lake Tsana or the Sobat, which would arrest the flow of their -waters into the Nile. It will be remembered

that Sir William Garstin reported in 1901 that the best site for a great reservoir for the increase of the water supply of Egypt and the Soudan is the deep Lake Tsana, the source of the Blue Nile with its fertilising Paters. This clause of the* treaty is a good augury for Menelik’s sanction later on of Sir William Garstin’s great engineering scheme. .We only require now to “smash” the Mad Mullah completely to make the outlook in the north-east of Africa satisfactory in ©very way. ■ ' ,