Prince Bismarck then, with the acquiescence of France, extended an invitation through the representatives of the different nations to a Conference to be held at Berlin on the 15th of November following. The sittings of this Conference were held in the German Chancellor’s palace on Wilhelmstrasse, in the same room where the Berlin Conference sat in 1878.
When the members of the Conference had assembled, Prince Bismarck rose to formally open it, and in a short address he declared that the Conference had met for the solution of three main objects, to wit:
1. The free navigation, with freedom of trade on the river Congo.
2. The free navigation of the river Niger.
3. The formalities to be observed for valid annexation of territory in future on the African continent.
To this conference Mr. Stanley had been appointed technical delegate for the United States, and was introduced by the American Minister in highly complimentary terms. On the expression of views by the several delegates, Mr. Stanley, when called upon in the order on the roll, arose and said:
“To define the geographical basin of the Congo, whether explored or unexplored, is a very easy matter, since every school-boy knows that a river basin, geographically speaking, includes all that territory drained by the river and its affluents, large and small. The Congo, unlike many other large rivers, has no fluvial delta. It issues into the Atlantic Ocean in one united stream between Shark’s Point on the south and Banana Point on the north, with a breadth of seven miles and an unknown depth. Soundings have been obtained over 1300 feet deep. The Niger has a fluvial delta extending over 180 miles of coast line. The Nile and the Mississippi have deltas extending over a considerable breadth of coast line; but when you ask me as to what I should consider as the commercial basin of the Congo, I am bound to answer you that the main river and its most important affluents running into it from the north and south and from the northeast and northwest, east and west, southeast and southwest, constitute means by which trade ascending the river and its affluents can influence a much larger amount of territory than is comprised within the geographical basin.
“For all practical purposes the geographical basin of the Congo might be permitted to stand for the commercial basin of the Congo as well. When we begin to consider the commercial outlets from this basin of the Congo we must bear in mind that they extend, as a commercial delta to a commercial basin, from St. Paul de Loanda, to the south of the mouth of the Congo, as far north and including the Ogowai River. Whereas much of the littoral through which the commercial delta debouches is already occupied, we find that the breadth of what may be considered as the free commercial delta of the commercial basin of the Congo extends along the coast line from 1° 25´ S. latitude to near 7° 50´ S. latitude 385 geographical miles, for the following reason: At Stanley Pool, 325 miles up the Congo from the sea, we encounter fleets of trading canoes which have descended the main river from as far up as the Equator, from the affluents Mohindu, or Black River, and the Kwango, or Kwa, who wait patiently months at a time for the caravans from Loango, the Kwilu, Landana, Kabinda, Zombo, Funta, Kinzas, Kinsembo, Ambrizette and other places on the coast, which bring European goods from the coast to Stanley Pool to exchange for the produce of the upper Congo, notably ivory, rubber and camwood powder; and after a time, having exchanged their goods, march back with such produce of the upper Congo as will repay transportation to the European traders settled along the free coast line of 385 geographical miles just mentioned. These various channels of trade, formed by uninstructed barbarism, may then well be compared to a commercial delta. To define the commercial basin of the Congo by boundaries is very simple after the above remarks, and I will describe them as follows: Commencing from the Atlantic Ocean, I should follow the line of 1° 25´ S. latitude east as far as 13° 13´ longitude east of Greenwich, and along that meridian north until the water-shed of the Niger-Binué is reached, thence easterly along the water-shed separating the waters flowing into the Congo from those flowing into the Shari, and continuing east along the water-parting between the waters of the Congo and those of the Nile and southerly and easterly along the water-shed between the waters flowing into the Tanganyika and those flowing into the affluents of Lake Victoria, and still clinging to the water-shed to the east of the Tanganyika southerly until the water-parting between the waters flowing into the Zambesi and those flowing into the Congo is reached; thence along that water-shed westerly until the headwaters of the main tributary of the Kwango, or Kwa, is reached, whence the line shown runs along the left bank of the river Kwango, or Kwa, to 7° 50´ S. latitude; thence straight to the Loge River, and thence along the left bank of that river westerly to the Atlantic Ocean. By this delimitation you will have comprised the geographical or commercial basin and its present commercial delta.”
Being asked by Baron de Courcel as to what might be the estimated value of the trade in the Congo basin, Mr. Stanley replied:
“The lower Congo and the immediate free littoral make a shore line 388 miles in length. This mileage produces a present trade of £2,800,000 annually. The upper Congo is much more fertile, and, as it has a river shore of 10,000 miles, it ought to produce, if equally developed, a trade worth £70,000,000 annually. Or, if we reckon it in this manner, from the river Gambia to Loanda, along a coast line of 2900 miles in length, there are employed forty-five steamers and eighty sailing vessels every year. The Congo basin, with river banks over three times longer, ought to employ, if equally developed and equally exploited, three times that number, or say 135 steamers and 240 sailing vessels.”