A true copy.
Jas. M. Brown,
President.
George Wilson,
Secretary.
(From copy of correspondence of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.)
His Majesty the King of the Belgians has, during the last two years, incurred considerable expense in an expedition to the Upper Congo for the purposes of opening roads, establishing stations for trade, and for communication with the vast tribes inhabiting the interior of Africa. For the result of this expedition merchants are watching with interest, believing that this river will ultimately become one of the great highways for trade in the heart of Africa.
... It is, therefore, both manifest and notorious that the African tribes who inhabit the coast-line claimed by Portugal, between 5° 12´, and 8th degree south latitude, are in reality independent, and that the right acquired by Portugal from priority of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century has for a long time been suffered to lapse, owing to the Portuguese Government not having occupied the country so discovered. In the presence of these facts the undersigned must repeat the declaration of Her Majesty’s Government that the interests of commerce imperatively required it to maintain the right of unrestricted intercourse with that part of the coast of Western Africa extending between 5°, 12´, and the 8th degree of south latitude....
I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship’s obedient, very humble servant,
John Slagg,
President.
(From Earl Granville’s reply to Lord Mount Temple in the House of Lords, March 9, 1883.)
... The labours of men like Livingstone, Stanley, and others have given us a knowledge of the physical character of Central Africa, and of the populations which inhabit it, showing that there are great capabilities for the development of trade, and of the civilising effects which are the result of commerce. The work of the philanthropic International Association, in which the King of the Belgians takes a great interest, the mission of M. de Brazza, the increasing trade in different degrees, of the English, the Portuguese, the French, the Germans, the Dutch, and the Belgians, on the Congo and its banks, are acting as a stimulus and afford grounds why no reasonable endeavours should be neglected to insure freedom of commerce and navigation, and to anticipate possible jealousies, which so easily check trade, and which, under the pretence of securing peculiar advantages to some, are really injurious to all....