w- 
EUROPE AND AFRICA 
It is true that, when the “cat was out of the bag,” Lord 
Derby wired Robinson on July 17, 1884, to rush the bill 
for the annexation of the land north of Angra Pequena 
through the Cape Parliament, and it was passed on the 
16th. But it was too late. The Foreign Office had an- 
nounced on July 14 that it would not contest the German 
claim to a protectorate over Angra Pequena; and on August 
7, before the British authorities had time to occupy the coast 
north of Angra Pequena where their claus were very weak, 
the German warship Elizabeth took possession of the whole 
region between the Orange River and lat. 26° S. At first 
the British Government protested at this action; but in 
September they decided to welcome Germany as a colonial 
neighbor in South Africa and to recognize her “protector- 
ate” from the Portuguese possessions at lat. 18° S. to the 
Orange River, on the understanding that their own claims 
to Walfish Bay and to the islands along the coast should 
not be questioned. To this Germany assented. A joint 
commission was appointed to settle the questions of private 
claims like those of De Pass and Liideritz; and the whole 
matter was amicably adjusted in the treaty of July, 1886, 
by which Germany made her début as an African colonial 
power with 215,000 square miles of territory. The eastern 
boundary of this new possession was fixed in the treaty of 
1890 with England, in which Germany obtained access to 
the Zambesi River; and the northern line was determined 
in an agreement with Portugal signed on December 80, 
1886. 
The German hesitation concerning a colonial policy had 
come to an end in June, 1884. In the course of a debate over 
the Postal Subsidy Bill in the Reichstag on June 23 and 
again on June 26,! Bismarck took occasion to explain for 
the first time, and in detail, the contemplated colonial pro- 
3 Nord Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, June 25, 1884, and June 27, 1884.