§ 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 1855 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 KIMBERLEYMy 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 1856 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.