he trouble in West Africa promises to become such an important item of
current history that it might be well to look into it more deeply, and
try and get a clear idea of the difficulty.

France undoubtedly wishes to have dominion over the countries lying
between her western and eastern possessions in Africa. On the west coast
she owns the Senegal River and the town of St. Louis. The Central Soudan
also belongs to France, and on the east coast, opposite Aden, the two
towns of Obok and Tanjurrah fly the French flag. The problem has been to
acquire the lands intervening, so as to make one unbroken line. You can
see what an advantage this would be; for, with the Nile on one side and
the Niger on the other, it would be comparatively easy to ship valuable
products from the interior to the markets of the world.

Since 1880, France has spent great sums of money in trying to bridge
over the space lying between her possessions, and step by step her
empire has pushed its way from the Senegal to the Niger.

England had been confined to the coast. She owned Sierra Leone, the
Gambia Settlements, the Colony of Lagos, and the Niger Protectorate. The
Royal Niger Company owned the hinterland of Lagos, which means the
country back of Lagos, and this is the only hinterland that England did
own. France, owning the country back of the English Colonies,
effectually checks their development.

Until 1890 there was a dispute between England and France about their
West African possessions. In 1890 there was a difficulty about territory
on the Lower Niger, and this was settled for a little while by a treaty
which marked out the British "spheres of influence" by a line drawn from
Say on the Niger to Lake Chad. Say is directly west of Sokoto, and you
can easily find Lake Chad on your map, for it is a very large lake. To
the south, the British were supposed to control "all that properly
belongs to the kingdom of Sokoto."

If France has invaded this kingdom they have broken the treaty, and they
are in the wrong.

On the other bank of the Niger, England, through the Royal Niger
Company, has made treaties with the native chiefs, and thus gained a
good foothold.

In 1893, France conquered and annexed Dahomey, which is on the coast;
but England controlled the hinterland of Dahomey through the treaties
her company had made with the chiefs. France chose to set aside these
treaties, and said that, having been made with savages, they were not
valid. D