Constan] CESSION OF CONGO TO BELGIUM 39 ber 14 the Congo Free State became defunct, Belgium assuming the rights of sovereignty on the follow ing day. A law on the government of the colony a sort of colonial charter, separating the Congo State from Belgium, giving it a distinct financial administra tion , limiting the powers of officials, and securing the rights of the natives—was signed by the young King Albert and promulgated on October 18, 1908. The French right of pre-emption over the territory in question was finally accepted by Belgium under the Franco -Belgian Agreement of the same year.

The frontier between the Belgian Congo and German East Africa, originally contemplated by the Convention of 1884, was defined in 1910 as starting from the summit of Mount Sabinio, which marks the point of contact between the Belgian, British, and German territories, and as running in a general southerly direc tion through Lake Kivu to Lake Tanganyika. This arrangement formed part of a Protocol signed on May 14, 1910, by Belgian, British, and German repre sentatives, in modification of the Anglo-Congolese Agreement of 1906. The Anglo- Belgian section of the Protocol suggested a definition of the limit of the Belgian Congo in relation to Uganda. In 1913-14 the question was again raised, together with that of the Belgian Congo frontier with the Anglo -Egyptian Sudan . In 1915 an agreement was finally reached and the boundary laid down from Mount Sabinio to the Congo-Nile watershed .

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