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THE EGYPTIAN QUESTION. services by buying them out at ten shillings in the pound. What those services are worth, future generations of Englishmen will realise. The regions to which I have just alluded were generally recognised as lying within the British sphere of influence in the partition of Africa which took place in 1890. Moreover, the British sphere of influence was specifically acknowledged to extend over the Nile Valley, by agreements made in 1890 with Germany and with Italy. It was similarly recognised by the agreement made with the Congo Free State in 1894, under which a lease was granted to the Free State for the life-time of the present King of the Belgians. We have always maintained that the Nile Valley and the Egyptian Soudan, including the provinces of Kordofan, Darfur, and Bahr-al-Gazal, though temporarily lost to Egypt by the Mahdist Rebellion, still remained Egyptian territory. A few years ago, the French Foreign Ministers of the day were fond of pointing out (I suppose when they feared that we might seize it for ourselves) that the Khedive and the Sultan were still the supreme rulers of the old Egyptian Soudan. Lately, however, they have taken another line, and have tried to maintain that Egyptian claims have lapsed, owing to the non-exercise of Egyptian authority.

An exactly parallel case can be quoted against this contention. In 1873, Portugal and Great Britain submitted their dispute with regard to Delagoa Bay to arbitration. Portugal claimed rights of sovereignty, as existing since the discovery of the bay by Portuguese navigators in the sixteenth century. Great Britain claimed under treaties concluded in 1823 between Captain Owen and certain native chiefs, whom he 237