VI.
The guarantees obtained by Germany for her subjects and protégés consisted mainly in freedom of trade and economic liberty, and consequently in being on an equal footing with the French in the matter of concessions. She was assured, furthermore, that her manufacturers could draw on Morocco for iron ore (in which the subsoil there is very abundant), since no export duty would be imposed on this product. On her side, she promised not to fetter the action of France as regards aiding the Sultan to introduce administrative, judicial, economic, financial, and military reforms. The expository letters interchanged on the same day between the ambassador and the Secretary of State were still more definite. “Should the French Government,” wrote Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, “think it advisable to assume the protectorate of Morocco, the Imperial Government would do nothing to impede such action.” An inevitable result of this promise was the disappearance of consular jurisdiction. “The German Government,” said Kiderlen-Wächter’s dispatch, “from the day that the new judicial system comes into force, after due arrangement with the Powers, will consent at the same time as the other Powers to the abolition of its consular courts.”
The territorial concessions in Africa demanded by Germany seemed at first sight rather trifling: a stretch of country with two projecting arms, which shot out from the Atlantic coast, the one reaching to the right bank of the Lower Congo, up to the mouth of the Sanga, with a breadth (to be fixed later) of some four to eight miles; the other, with a corresponding breadth, to Lobay, where the Congo is met by its great tributary, the Oubanghi. Yet these antennæ or “tentacles,” as they were called later, were strong enough to rivet the Germans on to the Congo basin, whence they had till then been excluded. This is what made the acquisition an important one, with the prospect of serious consequences in the future. In the course of the negotiations, Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter had declared that his Government regarded access to the Congo as a condition sine qua non of the agreement.
At the last moment, he even demanded the cession to Germany of the preferential or pre-emptive right possessed by France over the territories of the old Congo Free State. This right she had retained when the territories passed into the hands of Belgium. The latter could not acquiesce in the ceding of such a privilege to a third Power without her assent, without her being even consulted. A preferential right is not a bill of exchange or a mortgage, transferable at pleasure to a third party. The prerogative had been granted to France alone by King Leopold, under special circumstances, with a view to ultimate advantages and as a return for waiving the right of first settlement in certain districts of the Lower Congo valley, over which Stanley and Brazza had had a dispute as to priority of occupation. Still less would Belgium have understood why the renunciation of so personal a privilege, and one connected with a Belgian colony, should be among the clauses of a treaty relating to Morocco. The Republican Government, foreseeing Belgium’s opposition and appreciating the reasons for it, would not allow this preferential right to be mentioned in the expository letters. At M. Cambon’s advice, the following Article XVI., which, in his opinion, should prove a guarantee to Belgium against any expropriation, was inserted in the text of the Convention: “Should the territorial statute for the Congo Basin as defined by the Berlin treaty of 26th February 1884 come to be modified by one or other of the high contracting parties, the latter must confer on the subject among themselves, as well as with the other Powers that have signed the instrument.” In point of fact, on the strength of this article, the exercise of preferential right was subjected to German control.
The Belgian public learnt with painful surprise of the German designs on the Congo State, and the Press gave free utterance to its anger and its dismay. Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter was exceedingly vexed, not only at Belgian comment on his demands, but at the fact that they had been made known to us at all. He did not hide his annoyance from my predecessor, but vented it with a good deal of bluster, and consciously exaggerated his fears, after our display of feeling, for the future good relations between the two countries.
It was thus that Belgium, while quietly pursuing her work of colonial development, became involved in the dispute arising out of the Agadir affair. The effect of the German claims on Morocco was felt, like the shock from some distant explosion, in the Congo basin, where we were to be faced at two points with a neighbour whose cupidity and daring gave us good cause to be uneasy. That our apprehensions were well grounded is, I think, fairly clear from my account, in another chapter, of the African policy approved by official circles in Berlin.