Lords Sitting of 2 June 1881

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Stationery Office (Controller's Report), nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Local Government (Gas) Provisional Orders*(93); Local Government Provisional Order (Birmingham)*(94); Local Government Provisional Orders (Brentford Union, &c.)*(95).
Committee—Report—Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law)(No. 2)*(88).

QUESTIONS. OBSERVATIONS.
LORD LAMINGTON,in rising to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Lourençco Marquey Delagoa Bay Treaty of May 1879, between Great Britain and Portugal has ever been ratified; and also what our present position is as regards the power of embarking and disembarking troops in Delagoa Bay with a free passage through Portuguese territory to the Transvaal? said, in putting the Question, he hoped that he should be permitted to remind their

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Lordships that for upwards of 30 years there had been a dispute between this country and Portugal with regard to the Province of Lourenço Marquey and Delagoa Bay. That dispute was in 1875 referred to the arbitration of the then President of the French Republic, Marshal MacMahon, who eventually decided the point in issue in favour of Portugal. The matter at that time was not one of much importance, as the Transvaal was then an independent Republic; but afterwards—that was to say, in 1877—it did become a matter of very considerable importance to us, because the port of Lourenço Marquey, in Delagoa Bay, was not only one of the finest harbours on the East Coast of South Africa, but in the world. The Province of Lourenço Marquey lay between the Transvaal and Delagoa Bay, which was the natural port of the Transvaal; so much so, that when the decision of Marshal MacMahon was pronounced in 1875, the Republic of Smith Africa at once entered a protest against it, and that was one of the causes of the outbreak, because the inhabitants of the Transvaal were cut off from Delagoa Bay, and were compelled to make use of Durban, the port of Natal, and to pay all the transit dues levied upon goods passing through the Province of Natal. It, therefore, became of great importance that we should secure a passage over Portuguese territory to Delagoa Bay, and, consequently, in 1879, we entered into the Treaty with Portugal to which his Question referred. He now wished to know, Whether that Treaty had been ratified. He also wished to ask, If the commercial Treaty and railway contract, concluded between the Portuguese Government and President Burgess, has been carried out since the annexation of the Transvaal?
THE EARL OE KIMBERLEY: My Lords, before answering the Questions put by the noble Lord, I wish to set him right upon a point on which he is under a misapprehension as to the effect of the award of Marshal MacMahon. It is supposed that by that award the bay and town of Lourenço Marquey, which were previously claimed by the British Government, were handed over to Portugal. But the British claim never extended to the whole of the bay, but only to the southern part of it, and did not include the part near the town of Lourenço
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Marquey or the district where the proposed railway was to be constructed, which were always recognized as Portuguese. My answer to the first Question is that the Treaty was ratified some time ago by this country, when the late Government were in Office; but, although every effort has been made by Her Majesty's present Government to get the Treaty ratified, it has not yet been ratified by Portugal. It is necessary, according to the law of Portugal, that the Treaty should be assented to by the Legislature. The House of Representatives has passed a Resolution adopting the Treaty; but the House of Peers has not yet considered it, and the Treaty has met with violent opposition in Portugal, owing to its provisions and intentions being misunderstood. In the present state of affairs it has been agreed that its further consideration should be postponed. The answer to the second Question is that we have no right to embark or disembark troops on Portuguese territory, or to send troops by way of Delagoa Bay to the Transvaal. The question was dealt with in the Treaty; but, inasmuch as the Treaty was not ratified, no such right exists. As to the last Question, a Commercial Treaty and Protocol, and not a railway contract, was concluded with the President of the South African Republic in 1875; but that treaty fell to the ground on the annexation of the Transvaal, and was intended to be replaced by the Treaty which has not been ratified.

QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
LORD CHELMSFORDin rising to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, Why such a delay has taken place in the distribution of the medals to the officers and men of the Royal Navy and of the Marines who were employed on shore in the Naval Brigade during the Cape Colony and Zulu wars of 1878–79? said, that when in command of the British Forces in South Africa he had received such efficient support from the Sister Service that he was anxious that no greater delay than was absolutely necessary should occur in the presentation of these honorary rewards to the

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men of the Naval Brigade for their gallant services. The General Order granting a medal for service in South Africa during the years 1877–8–9 was issued to the Army in the month of August, 1880, and the first distribution of medals to Staff and other officers took place in September of the same year. The 1st Battalion 24th Regiment received their medals in December, 1880, and there were, at the present time, only two regiments who had not received it; whilst, as he understood, not one medal had as yet been issued to the Navy. The Naval Brigade consisted of blue-jackets and marines from the Active, Shah, Tenedos, and Boadicea. The two former ships had been paid off; the Tenedos had been home since the war was over, and was now in the West Indies; and the Boadicea had its headquarters at Simon's Bay. He could not, therefore, see why the distribution of medals for those entitled to receive them should not have been made as quickly as was the case in the Army. It must be remembered that honours and rewards for campaigns only reached a small minority, and that the great majority of those who took part in them had nothing to look forward to but the medal as a reward for their services.
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: My noble and gallant Friend would have been more accurate in the contrast which appears in the Notice of his Question between the issue of medals to the Army and to the Naval Brigade for the Cape and Zulu wars of 1878 and 1879 if he had said, as he has now explained, that some of these medals had been distributed to the Army six months ago, instead of implying that all had been then distributed. The fact is, that although the distribution of medals to the Army commenced some time ago, it is not concluded, and two regiments have not yet received them, owing to the necessary delay in engraving the name of each man on his medal. As regards the Navy and Royal Marines, there were some doubts as to the rules under which the medal and the clasp were to be given to the different ships employed in the operations, which made it necessary to refer to the Commodore at the Cape, and also the Commodore preceding him (Sir Francis Sullivan). As soon as answers were received from those, the nominal rolls had to be made out,
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and in doing this the Admiralty have more difficulty than the War Office, for seamen do not remain together like soldiers in a regiment; and it took three months, from February till May last, to complete the rolls. They were completed about a fortnight ago, and sent to the Commissary General at Woolwich, and I am informed that 200 medals are ready for issue to H.M.S. Boadicea, and that the remainder are daily expected from the Mint. I do not think that any blame can properly be attached to the officers of the Admiralty Departments on account of the time which has been taken in this matter. Although I admit that it is highly desirable that such rewards should be conferred promptly, it must also be remembered that great care is required, both in settling the service for which medals should be given, and also to prepare accurate lists of the men who are entitled to them.
House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till To-morrow Two o'clock