Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AFRICAN AGREEMENT The following extracts, which deal with the African treaty which was negotiated while Prince Lichnowsky was Ambassador at London, are taken from the " Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten": In the year 1898 a secret treaty had been signed by Count Hatzfeldt [then German Ambassador in London] and Mr. Balfour, which divided the Portuguese colonies in Africa into economic-political spheres of interest between us and England./ As the Portuguese Government possessed neither the power nor the means to open up or adequately to administer its extensive possessions, the Portuguese Government had already at an earlier date thought of selling these possessions and thereby put- so ting their finances in order. Between us and England an agreement had been reached which defined the interests of the two parties and which was of all the greater value because Portugal, as is well known, is completely dependent upon England. This treaty was no doubt to secure outwardly the integrity and independence of the Portuguese Empire, and it only expressed (I the intention of giving financial and econo- tnic assistance to the Portuguese. Consequently it did not, according to the text, conflict with the old Anglo-Portuguese alliance, dating from the fifteenth century, which was last renewed under Charles II. and which guaranteed the territories of the two parties. Nevertheless, at the instance of the Marquis Several, who presumably was not ignorant of the Anglo-German agreement, a new treaty—the so-called Windsor treaty—which confirmed the old agreements, was concluded in 1899 between England and Portugal. I.England's Generous Attitude The object of the negotiations between us and England, which had begun before my arrival, was to alter and amend our treaty of 1898, which contained...