Complete satisfaction on all hands has been produced by the publication of the terms of the Anglo-French Agreement in regard to Africa. Lord Salisbury has scored heavily. He has obtained everything for Great' Britain and Egypt which anyone in this country desired to claim, and he has obtained it apparently without forfeiting the good-will of France. The French Government of course put the best face they can on the Agreement. They naturally lay as little stress as possible on the fact that the line of posts which Mujor Marchand established in the Bahr-el-Ghazal have been abandoned and the whole of that province has been left within the British sphere of influence, and make the most of their acquisition of the "vast territories, which, under the names of Bagirmi, Wadai, and Kanem, form the eastern and western basin of Lake Chad." But they cannot conceal from the people of France the fact that the Agreement proves the Marchand Mission to have been from beginning to end a blunder, from which absolutely nothing has been gained. The people of France, however, though not deceived, are seemingly quite content. 'They are willing to admit the blunder, to acknowledge the justice of the claim of Great Britain and' Egypt to the Bahr-cl-Ghazal, and to be content with having secured by treaty what they might have been perfectly certain of having in any case—free access to the Nile through Anglo-British territory. The Agreement throws open a vast district in the spheres of influence of the two countries to the trade of both on equal terms, and settles en lines equally favourable to both a number of questions which might easily have led to ruptures. Altogether the Agreement confirms the already strong impression that the resolute action taken up by Lord Salisbury over the Fashoda question has paved the way for a more cordial feeling between the two countries than has existed for many years past.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.