PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.
believed to be independent, contending that any earlier rights which Portugal might have possessed had been allowed by her to fall into abeyance. Marshal MacMahon, then President of the French Republic, acting as arbitrator, disposed of Great Britain's plea as follows: 'Whereas, if the accidental weakness of the Portuguese authority in these parts were able in 1823 to lead Captain Owen into error, and cause him to consider in good faith, as actually independent of the Crown of Portugal, the native chiefs of the territories, now in dispute, the acts concluded by him with these chiefs were none the less in violation of the rights of Portugal.'
Our claim to Nile Valley maintained.Whatever may have been the bearing of Marshal MacMahon's award in the case just referred to, we have never admitted the claim of any other Power to a position in the Nile Valley. In March, 1895, Sir Edward Grey, in his much-quoted speech in the House of Commons, pointed out that 'The advance of a French expedition, under secret instructions, right from the other side of Africa into territory our claims over which have been known for so long, would be not merely an inconsistent and unexpected act, but it must be perfectly well known that it would be an unfriendly act, and would be so viewed by England.' On the 10th December, 1897, M. Hanotaux, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, was expressly informed that Her Majesty's Government adhered to the language of their predecessors.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the fact that the exertions which have culminated in the reconquest of the Soudan were ours. We have not expended the blood of British soldiers and the money of the British238
