For some time there was much friction between London and Berlin on these questions, but on May 7, 1885, an agreement was finally arrived at, a line drawn between the Rio del Rey and the Old Calabar River being fixed on as the boundary of the spheres of influence of the two Powers, while Germany further recognised the sovereignty of Britain over St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, and promised not to annex any land between Natal and Delagoa Bay[450]. Many censures were lavished on this agreement, which certainly sacrificed important British interests in the Cameroons in consideration of the abandonment of German claims on the Zulu coast which were legally untenable. Thus, by pressing on various points formerly regarded as under British influence, Bismarck secured at least one considerable district--one moreover that is the healthiest on the West African coast. Subsequent expansion made of the Cameroons a colony containing some 140,000 square miles with more than 1,100,000 inhabitants.
It is an open secret that Germany was working hard in 1884-85 to get a foothold on the Lower Niger and its great affluent, the Benuë. Two important colonial societies combined to send out Herr Flegel in the spring of 1885 to secure possession of districts on those rivers where British interests had hitherto been paramount. Fortunately for the cause of Free Trade (which Germany had definitely abandoned in 1880) private individuals had had enough foresight and determination to step in with effect, and to repair the harm which otherwise must have come from the absorption of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues in home affairs.
In the present case, British merchants were able to save the situation, because in the year 1879 the firms having important business dealings with the River Niger combined to form the National African Company in order to withstand the threatening pressure of the French advance soon to be described. In 1882 the Company's powers were extended, largely owing to Sir George Taubman Goldie, and it took the name of the National African Company. Extending its operations up the River Niger, it gradually cut the ground from under the French companies which had been formed for the exploitation and ultimate acquisition of those districts, so that after a time the French shareholders agreed to merge themselves in the British enterprise.
This important step was taken just in time to forestall German action from the side of the Cameroons, which threatened to shut out British trade from the banks of the River Benuë and the shores of Lake Chad. Forewarned of this danger, Sir George Goldie and his directors urged that bold and successful explorer, Mr. Joseph Thomson, to safeguard the nation's interests along the Benuë and north thereof. Thomson had scarcely recovered from the hardships of his epoch-marking journey through Masailand; but he now threw himself into the breach, quickly travelled from England to the Niger, and by his unrivalled experience alike of the means of travel and of native ways, managed to frame treaties with the Sultans of Sokoto and Gando, before the German envoy reached his destination (1885). The energy of the National African Company and the promptitude and tact of Mr. Thomson secured for his countrymen undisputed access to Lake Chad and the great country peopled by the warlike Haussas[451].
Seeing that both France and Germany seek to restrict foreign trade in their colonies, while Great Britain gives free access to all merchants on equal terms, we may regard this brilliant success as a gain, not only for the United Kingdom, but for the commerce of the world. The annoyance expressed in influential circles in Germany at the failure of the plans for capturing the trade of the Benuë district served to show the magnitude of the interests which had there been looked upon as prospectively and exclusively German. The delimitation of the new British territory with the Cameroon territory and its north-eastern extension to Lake Chad was effected by an Anglo-German agreement of 1886, Germany gaining part of the upper Benuë and the southern shore of Lake Chad. In all, the territories controlled by the British Company comprised about 500,000 square miles (more than four times the size of the United Kingdom).
It is somewhat characteristic of British colonial procedure in that period that many difficulties were raised as to the grant of a charter to the company which had carried through this work of national importance; but on July 10, 1886, it gained that charter with the title of the Royal Niger Company. The chief difficulties since that date have arisen from French aggressions on the west, which will be noticed presently.
In 1897 the Royal Niger Company overthrew the power of the turbulent and slave-raiding Sultan of Nupe, near the Niger, but, as has so often happened, the very success of the company doomed it to absorption by the nation. On January 1, 1900, its governing powers were handed over to the Crown; the Union Jack replaced the private flag; and Sir Frederick Lugard added to the services which he had rendered to the Empire in Uganda by undertaking the organisation of this great and fertile colony. In an interesting paper, read before the Royal Geographical Society in November 1903, he thus characterised his administrative methods: "To rule through the native chiefs, and, while checking the extortionate levies of the past, fairly to assess and enforce the ancient tribute. By this means a fair revenue will be assured to the emirs, in lieu of their former source of wealth, which consisted in slaves and slave-raiding, and in extortionate taxes on trade. . . . Organised slave-raiding has become a thing of the past in the country where it lately existed in its worst form." He further stated that the new colony has made satisfactory progress; but light railways were much needed to connect Lake Chad with the Upper Nile and with the Gulf of Guinea. The area of Nigeria (apart from the Niger Coast Protectorate) is about 500,000 square miles[452].
The result, then, of the activity of French and Germans in West Africa has, on the whole, not been adverse to British interests. The efforts leading to these noteworthy results above would scarcely have been made but for some external stimulus. As happened in the days of Dupleix and Montcalm, and again at the time of the little-known efforts of Napoleon I. to appropriate the middle of Australia, the spur of foreign competition furthered not only the cause of exploration but also the expansion of the British Empire.
The expansion of French influence in Africa has been far greater than that of Germany; and, while arousing less attention on political grounds, it has probably achieved more solid results--a fact all the more remarkable when we bear in mind the exhaustion of France in 1871, and the very slow growth of her population at home. From 1872 to 1901 the number of her inhabitants rose from 36,103,000 to 38,962,000; while in the same time the figures for the German Empire showed an increase from 41,230,000 to 56,862,000. To some extent, then, the colonial growth of France is artificial; at least, it is not based on the imperious need which drives forth the surplus population of Great Britain and Germany. Nevertheless, so far as governmental energy and organising skill can make colonies successful, the French possessions in West Africa, Indo-China, Madagascar, and the Pacific, have certainly justified their existence[453]. No longer do we hear the old joke that a French colonial settlement consists of a dozen officials, a restaurateur, and a hair-dresser.