When the Anglo-Portuguese treaty was published the European Powers, especially France and Germany, emphatically protested against it, and in England men of all shades of politics combined to denounce it, principally through a fear that the restrictions imposed upon trade in other colonies belonging to Portugal would be so severe as to render commerce impossible in the Congo region.
The most signal protest came, however, from the United States Government. The United States Senate also, on the 10th of April, 1884, passed a resolution authorizing the President to recognize the International African Association as a governing power on the Congo River. This recognition gave birth to new life of the Association, seriously menaced as its existence was by opposing interests and ambitions, and the following of this example by the European Powers subsequently affirmed and secured its place among sovereign States. This act, the result of the well-considered judgment of the American statesmen, was greatly criticised abroad, as was the participation of the United States in the Berlin Conference, to which it directly led up, by the press of America. It was an act well worthy of the Great Republic, not only as taking the lead in publicly recognizing and supporting the great work of African civilization in history, and in promoting the extension of commerce, but of significant import in view of its interest for the future weal of 7,000,000 people of African descent within its borders.
The British Chambers of Commerce—notably those of Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow—resolutely opposed the treaty concluded with Portugal; but withal the strenuous opposition maintained to it in commercial circles and in the House of Commons, had not the Royal Founder of the Association obtained the assistance of the German Chancellor and the sympathies of the French Government, it is doubtful whether anything done in England would have succeeded in averting the effectual seal being put upon enterprise in the Congo basin by this treaty. Much more liberal terms would be needed to tempt Congress within its borders than any provisions that the treaty contained. Some such arrangement as that made by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, whereby liberty of navigation was proclaimed to the great rivers of Europe, such as the Rhine and the Danube, would be necessary; and now that an association had absorbed unto itself hundreds of petty sovereignties along a large portion of it, and France had proceeded in the same manner to absorb other portions of the Congo banks, while Portugal pressed her claims to territories washed by the great African river, it was absolutely and imperatively incumbent on the Powers to step forward and impose such obligations on the riveraine Powers as would not imperil or strangle the commerce already thriving on the banks of the lower Congo.
On the 7th of June, 1884, Prince Bismarck, in a communication to Count Munster, set forth his objections to the Anglo-Portuguese treaty, and concluded with the following words:
“In the interests of German commerce, therefore, I cannot consent that a coast of such importance, which has hitherto been free land, should be subjected to the Portuguese colonial system.”
In West African trade, Great Britain stood almost alone at one time. Her traders were busy on the Gambia, on the Roquelle, on the Gold Coast, at Lagos in the oil rivers, at Gaboon and Kabinda, and the Glasgow and Liverpool and Bristol merchants were represented by a host of agents, who had planted themselves at various points along the 2900 miles of coast; but of late years, through the apathy of the English merchants, Germany, by her enterprise, had also established herself at various places, and great houses like that of Woerman’s were looming upward, overtopping all individual English firms, which could number their factories by dozens and their agents by scores. Hamburg and Bremen were outrivalling Liverpool and Glasgow. Hence Germany had solid and substantial reasons for watching and jealously guarding her mercantile interests; and France, aided by the energy and talents of Monsieur de Brazza, in territories beyond and contiguous to the Gaboon colony, naturally wished to establish herself beyond dispute in the districts acquired by the devotion and intelligence of her agents. German savants had explored territories unclaimed by any Power; German merchants were honestly established at certain places on the West African coast; out of the most intelligent and enterprising of the sons of Germany twenty-four geographical societies had been formed, and a dozen colonial associations, besides African societies, were being constituted in Germany. Already Bascian, Gussfeldt, Peschuel Loesche, Buchner, Von Mechow, Pogge, Weissman, had been equipped by a German African Society, and it was preparing to despatch more. These facts were published in the reviews and magazines. There was no secrecy in the movement. All was honest and above-board, and all the world was told of the modest effort Germany was making to expand its colonial strength.
Like the great statesman that he is, Prince Bismarck bent his genius to the creation of a sound system of colonial policy—not rashly, though to those without the orbit of his genius it might be supposed to be eccentric.
On the 13th of September he wrote to Baron de Courcel, French Ambassador at Berlin:
“Like France, the German Government will observe a friendly attitude towards the Belgian enterprises on the banks of the Congo, owing to the desire entertained by the two Governments to secure to their countrymen freedom of trade throughout the whole of the future Congo States, and in districts which France holds on the river, and which she proposes to assimilate to the liberal system which that State is expected to establish. These advantages will continue to be enjoyed by German subjects, and will be guaranteed to them in the event of France being called upon to exercise the right of preference accorded by the King of the Belgians in the contingency of the acquisitions made by the Congo Company being alienated!”
Baron de Courcel, in reply, stated that he had not failed to convey to his Government Prince Bismarck’s note, which in its substance was similar to the views they had exchanged at Varzin; also, that the French Republic was completely in accord with the Imperial Government of Germany about the desirability of arriving at a mutual understanding respecting the delimitation of territory over the west coast of Africa, especially where the German possessions border on those of the French. He likewise acknowledged that the friendly accord between the two Governments was connected with principles of the highest importance to trade in Africa, of which the chief are those which must govern the freedom of trade in the basin of the Congo. He also assented to the idea that whereas the African International Association, which had established a number of stations on the Congo, declares itself ready to admit that principle over all the territory under its control, France should grant freedom of trade over that which she now owns, or may hereafter own on the Congo, and that France declared her willingness to permit this freedom to continue in the event of her reaping the benefit of the arrangements touched upon by the Prince, which assures to France the right of preference in case of alienation of the territories acquired by the Association. He defined freedom of commerce to mean free access to all flags, and the interdiction of all monopoly or differential duties; but not excluding the establishment of taxes to compensate for useful expenditure incurred in the interests of commerce. While freely extending these beneficial concessions to commercial enterprise in the Congo basin, Baron de Courcel stated that France was not willing that Gaboon, Guinea or Senegal should share them; but solely the Congo and the Niger.