ver and its adjacent coasts. In the
years 1883, 1884, Portugal put forward a claim to the overlordship of
those districts on the ground of priority of discovery and settlement.
On all sides that claim was felt to be unreasonable. The occupation of
that territory by the Portuguese had been short-lived, and nearly all
traces of it had disappeared, except at Kabinda and one or two points on
the coast. The fact that Diogo Cam and others had discovered the mouth
of the Congo in the fifteenth century was a poor argument for closing to
other peoples, three centuries later, the whole of the vast territory
between that river and the mouth of the Zambesi. These claims raised the
problem of the Hinterland, that is, the ownership of the whole range of
territory behind a coast line. Furthermore, the Portuguese officials
were notoriously inefficient and generally corrupt; while the customs
system of that State was such as to fetter the activities of trade with
shackles of a truly mediaeval type.

Over against these musty claims of Portugal there stood the offers of
"The International Association of the Congo" to bring the blessings of
free trade and civilisation to downtrodden millions of negroes, if only
access were granted from the sea. The contrast between the dull
obscurantism of Lisbon and the benevolent intentions of Brussels struck
the popular imagination. At that time the eye of faith discerned in the
King of the Belgians the ideal godfather of a noble undertaking, and
great was the indignation when Portugal interfered with freedom of
access to the sea at the mouth of the Congo. Various matters were also
in dispute between Portugal and Great Britain respecting trading rights
at that important outlet; and they were by no means settled by an
Anglo-Portuguese Convention of February 26 (1884), in which Lord
Granville, Foreign Minister in the Gladstone Cabinet, was thought to
display too much deference to questionable claims. Protests were urged
against this Convention, by the United States, France, and Germany, with
the result that the Lisbon Government proposed to refer all these
matters to a Conference of the Powers; and arrangements were soon made
for the summoning of their representatives to Berlin, under the
presidency of Prince Bismarck.

Before the Conference met, the United States took the decisive step of
recognising the rights of the Association to the government of that
river-basin (April 10, 1884)--a proceeding which