APPENDIX
NOTE A.—[P. 55.]
The German Annexation
The following passage taken from the Report of the Baptist Missionary Society, May, 1885, states the case succinctly:—
“For many years past the Committee of the Society have indulged the hope that a favourable response would be returned by the British Government to the repeated appeals from the chiefs and headmen of the Cameroons district that their country might be taken under the government and protection of the English Crown, and when sending in memorials to successive Governments asking the same favour for the Society’s settlement of Victoria and the adjacent district belonging absolutely to the Mission, the Committee have frequently pleaded on behalf of the Dualla people also.
“With regard to the Cameroons, however, all such expectations must be finally abandoned, as the district is now under German authority, the whole country having been annexed to the German Empire in August, 1884. The story of how this was brought about is so plainly told in a recent Blue Book presented in both Houses of Parliament, and entitled ‘Africa, No. 1, 1885. Correspondence respecting affairs in the Cameroons,’ that further reference to it here is unnecessary.
“The Committee, however, cannot refrain from placing on record their sincere regret that the British Government so long delayed taking action in response to the numerous appeals of the Cameroon chiefs and peoples, as but for this delay recent painful and disastrous events might altogether have been avoided, and the often expressed desires of the Dualla peoples complied with.
“Nor is the recent annexation of the settlement of Victoria by the British Government likely to be attended with any real advantage to the dwellers there, if reported concessions of surrounding territory by the English Government to Germany be a fact; as by such arrangement the small township and territory belonging absolutely to the Mission will be completely environed by German possessions, and trade with the interior rendered practically valueless in consequence of restrictive and almost prohibitive duties and exactions.
“The outlook at present is dark in the extreme, and it appears more than probable that the work of the Society on the West Coast, rendered so dear to the denomination by the sacrifice of many noble lives and the outlay of large sums of money, may have to be relinquished.