350 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY pectancy to the highest point. Capital became available for every enterprise, and in the last quarter of the nineteenth century colonial apathy on the part of the western nations gave place to a keen competition for the acquisition of fields of commercial operation — which were known by the political name of ''spheres of influence" — in hitherto undeveloped portions of the world. Africa became the scene of an international race for territory and power. In the heart of the continent the Congo Free State was brought into existence by mutual agreement of the European Powers in 1885, and was placed, with what were held to be due guarantees for freedom of trade, under the direction of the King of the Belgians. The position of England was unchallenged in the south. Portugal retained, and Germany made good claims upon the east and west coasts. England too secured from the east coast a position, which at a later period was extended to the interior, and gave her the command of the great waterways and the Valley of the Nile. France held an undisputed position of predominant influence in the north, as well as important centres of trade and of military influence on the west coast.

That under these circumstances the directors of French colonial policy should have cherished the ambition ascribed to them of joining their possessions on the coast of the Mediterranean to their possessions in the west, and thus becoming the possessors of the whole of North-West Africa, was in no sense to be wondered at. The introduction of railways had abolished distance, and there was no apparent obstacle to obstruct the spread of French influence from the Mediterranean seaboard to the equator. A-map showing the limits of the West African colonies of Great Britain, which was prepared and submitted to the Committee of 1865, gave practically no dimensions to the British settlements. They are indicated simply as pink lines upon the sea coast, with here and there a dot, of which it appeared in evidence that one mile might be taken as the greatest extent inland. Only on the Gold Coast there