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 288 THE CECILS

Since 1884 Germany had been active in seizing African territory, and Lord Granville had adopted a most complaisant attitude towards their schemes. Nor was Lord Iddesleigh more alive to British interests. During his short term of office, he actually completed an arrangement with Germany by which England might have been cut off altogether from the upper Nile. Lord Salisbury, however, was able to counteract the effects of this arrangement by granting a Royal Charter to the British East Africa Company, founded by Sir William Mackinnon. Gradually, under Lord Salisbury's influence, the rivalry between England and Germany entered on a less threatening phase, and in 1889, Bismarck, who a few years before had adopted an aggressive and bullying attitude to this country, declared, in a speech on colonial matters, that " we have proceeded, and always shall proceed, in harmony with the greatest colonial power in the world England." But it was not till after Bismarck's fall that the pro- tracted negotiations culminated in the Anglo- German Agreement of 1890, by which the spheres of influence of the two countries in East and West Africa were determined. Germany relin- quished all claim to Uganda and the Upper I Nile, and recognised England's protectorate of Zanzibar, receiving in exchange the island of Heligoland. This agreement is one of Lord Salisbury's greatest achievements as a diplomatist ; and though the cession of Heligoland met with strong opposition at the time and in the light of

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