“‘These rights were conceded to the company and became legally its property. The Government of Her Majesty had no power to enter into a general examination of the propriety of the occupation of Borneo by a commercial company. It would have been an act of confiscation if, after what had happened, the Government had interfered, and had endeavoured to take from it the rights which it had acquired. ... The only thing the Government had to decide was whether or
not it was necessary to leave the company to act without impediment and entirely without control.’
“Mr. Gladstone was not less affirmative. Said he, at the same sitting:
“‘The charter has not conferred upon the company a single privilege above and beyond what it had already acquired by virtue of a title sufficient to enable it to exercise all these powers.’
“From the explanations given by Lord Granville in the House of Lords, the 13th March, 1882, it appears that if Holland and Spain have protested against the rights invoked by the Overbeck-Dent Company, it was because of anterior rights which these states pretend to have over the northern part of Borneo; but, no more than Germany, formally consulted in the matter by the British Government, have they raised any doubt as to the capacity of individuals and companies to obtain from non-civilised sovereigns the cession of rights implying the exercise of sovereignty. This capacity also was not denied by the members on the opposition side of the House of Commons.”
Thus, the opinion of four Governments, the opinion of two English ministers, Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone, and of the attorney-general, Sir Henry James, that of Sir Travers Twiss, and of M. de Laveleye, to which we would add the considerations developed in the open letter addressed, the 23d April, 1883, by a member of the African International Association to the Courrier des États-Unis, form an assemblage of authorities of a nature to fortify us in our conviction if we had any doubts.
We conclude with these observations:
1. It is evident that if some powers have raised against similar concessions, made by chiefs of savage tribes to individuals and associations, reclamations founded upon rights previously acquired, there would be ground to submit these pretensions to serious examination, or perhaps they might be submitted to arbitration, as Great Britain and Portugal, in 1875, submitted to the arbitration of the President of the French Republic, M. MacMahon, the contest in regard to certain lands situated on the bay of Delagoa.
2. New sovereignties, at the head of which are individuals or associations, the concessionaries of the chiefs of savage tribes, exist of themselves, of their own right and their own strength, without having need of the recognition of other States. (See Klüber, par. 24; Heffter, par. 23, p. 42, and par. 51, p. 104; Bluntschli, pars. 28 and 38; and all the authors.)
It depends upon the convenance of other States to recognise or not to recognise these new sovereignties. But whatever may be their determination in this respect, the want of recognition does not give them the right to act as if these sovereignties did not exist, and to consider their territories susceptible of occupation.