HC Deb 23 July 1883 vol 282 cc134-5
MR. WHITLEY

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is true that Mr. Cohen, the British Consul for Angola and the South-West Coast of Africa, has not visited the Gabeen Colony for several years; if any report of the treatment which British commerce and British subjects are experiencing in the Colony has been rendered by that officer; and, whether Her Majesty's Government, in the present critical state of British interests on the Congo and in the Gabeen Colony, will provide the means and instruct Consul Cohen to periodically visit and report upon the condition of British interests and trade within the limits of his Consulate, in a manner similar to that adopted by Consul Hewett in the Bights of Benin and Biafra?

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE

The French Settlement of Gabeen is not within Mr. Cohen's district, and he has sent no Report on it. Mr. Cohen is Consul for Angola, and receives his exequatur from the Portuguese Govern- ment. The Native territory up to and comprising the mouths of the Congo, for which no exequatur is required, are in his district. A man-of-war is regularly stationed at Loanda, and is at Mr. Cohen's disposal to convey him periodically to places on the coast which he may wish to visit. He visited the Congo in April last.