A.—4

24

By treaty of the 3rd April, 1885, certain German officials purchased from the firm F. A. E. Liideritz certain possessions which had been acquired and placed under German protection by that firm, and, having formed themselves into a company under the title, " German Colonial Company for South-west Africa," obtained, by Imperial Order of the 13th April, 1885, the rights of a lawadministering body. The object of this company is to extend by acquisition the possessions purchased from F. A. E. Liideritz, to explore the landed possessions and mining rights by expeditions and enterprise, to forward industrial and trade undertakings, and also German settlements, to initiate suitable commercial projects and carry them on either themselves or through others, to utilize private property, and, finally, to take over the administration of governmental authority "in so far as it has been intrusted to the company for their territory." As already stated, the German and English Governments have agreed to appoint a mixed Commission, to meet in Capetown, for the purpose of coming to a settlement as regards the rights of English subjects in the German South-west African Protectorate. Consul-General Dr. Bieber has been nominated as the German Commissioner; the English have chosen Mr. Sidney Godolphin Shippard, Judge of the Supreme Court of Capo Colony, as theirs. After lengthened negotiations tho English Government agreed to include in the scope of their deliberations the islands off Angra Pequena, inclusive of Shark Island, which had not been already proclaimed English territory. Accordingly there were excluded from discussion on the one hand the German protectorate over the coast-line between the mouth of the Orange Eiver and Cape Frio, with the exception of Walfish Bay and the small adjoining territory; and on the other hand the English sovereignty over Walfish Bay and those islands included in the deed of annexation of the 27th February, 1867. The aim of the Commission was to examine and to decide upon claims to private property and rights of working which the subjects of the one Empire in the territory of the other stated to have been acquired before the declaration of the German protectorate, and, in particular, pretensions put forward by English subjects on the ground of the alleged granting by Sir P. Wodehouse, in 1869, of a lease of some islands of rock and reef formation which were not named in the deed of 27th February, 1867. A notice of the mixed Commission was published in the Government Gazette No. 61, of the 12th March, 1885. The Commission commenced its sittings on the 14th March, 1885, and concluded the same, after an exhaustive investigation of the claims put forward, on the 4th September, 1885. The extent of the German protectorate into the interior was precisely fixed by a declaration from the English Government that the boundaries of Bechuanaland under their protection extended westward to the 20th degree east (Greenwich), and northward to the 22nd degree of south latitude. The English, moreover, pledged themselves not to extend their influence beyond the 20th degree east longitude, and not to oppose the advance of the German protectorate to the same degree. Finally, they also instructed the English officials at Cape Colony to refrain from meddling with the chiefs of Great Namaqualand and Hereroland, and to give the chief Kamaherero and other neighbouring rulers to understand that England had no intention of extending her protectorate at Walfish Bay. As already mentioned in the memorandum, the order for the appointment of an Imperial Commissioner for Angra Pequena has been carried into effect. The Commissioner, Dr. Goring, a Provincial Court Judge at Metz, has already arrived in his district; but, in consequence of the irregular and infrequent postal service, a detailed report, which he was to have made soon after his arrival, has not yet been received. IV. — Vitu (Suaheliland). So far back as the year 1867 the Sultan of Suaheli, Achmed ben Fiimo Lutui, instructed the Sheik Nabahani, surnamed Zimba (Lion), to ask (through the traveller Eichard Brenner) for the protection and friendship of the Prussian Kingdom. Although this request was without result at the time, the Sultan, by his subsequent friendly treatment of German travellers, showed that he valued highly any connection with the German Empire. In the year 1878 the African traveller Clemens Denhardt, at first alone and afterwards in company with his brother Gustav, became intimate with the Sultan Achmed, wdiose family had for a century ruled the country as far as the East African coast. Until within the last generation his claims to part of the territory had been disputed by the Sultan of Zanzibar This feud between Suaheli and Zanzibar is not yet at an end. On the Bth April, 1885, Sultan Achmed sold a portion of his land, comprising about twenty to twenty-five square miles, to Clemens Denhardt, including all public and private rights thereof. The limits of this territory were formed by a straight line from Vitu to Fungasomba, from Fungasomba to M'konumbi, thence over the Eiver M'konumbi to the Indian Ocean, along the Indian Ocean between the mouths of the rivers M'konumbi and Osi, then by the Eiver Osi to Kan and the Eiver Magogoni, and so along a straight line running from the most inland point of this river to Vitu. At the same time the Sultan Achmed gave, on the Bth April, 1885, special written authority to the brothers Denhardt to convey to the Imperial ConsulGeneral at Zanzibar his wish " to enter into relations of friendship with His Majesty the German Emperor, and to come under his sovereign and powerful protection." This request was, on the 24th April, 1885, telegraphed to the Foreign Office, and on the 27th May the Consul-General was "instructed to accept the Sultan of Vitu's offer, with reservation of the rights of others." Meanwhile the brothers Denhardt, who had full powers from the Sultan Achmed to negotiate in every way, and especially had been authorized to treat with the Sultan Seygid Bargasch, of Zanzibar, had sought to induce the latter ruler to abandon the hostile measures taken by him against the territory of Vitu. They, for instance, protested against the annexations of property and of sovereign rights which had been carried on latterly upon the coastland and islands of East Africa, botween Mogdischu (about 2° 10' north latitude) and Tangata (about 5° 20' south latitude), by Seygid Bargasch and possibly by some European Powers. They declared that the Sultan Achmed laid