In the same way the powerful insular kingdom voluntarily submitted to settlement in the weary contention regarding the possession of Delagoa Bay and the surrounding region on the east coast of Africa. The dispute was entrusted for settlement, in 1874, to the President of the French Republic, MacMahon, and he decided in July, 1875, in favour of Portugal. That the new contention between these two States, which for some time now has excited an inflammable spirit, not only in Portugal, but in other countries as well, will be arranged in the same friendly manner, there is but little doubt. The claim of Portugal is much older than that of England. Its special ground is the discovery of the coast which was made by Portuguese mariners three hundred years ago. The Portuguese urge, that since the coast is theirs, they have a right to go as far inland as they choose and place the country thus entered under their dominion. They say further, that they have made a treaty with a native ruler over a kingdom which stretches far inland, and that ruined fortresses are still to be found which show that they once had this distant region in possession. To this assertion Lord Salisbury answers, that where ruined fortresses are found they only testify to fallen dominion. The English Government could not recognise Portugal's construction of the contested question; according to that construction the question would virtually turn upon the possession of Shireland and Mashonaland (the inland country north and south of the Zambesi). It denied Portugal's claim to this territory as so entirely groundless that it could not enter into such a question; but has on the other hand made a peremptory claim, arising from Portugal's violence towards the natives who are under England's protection, for dishonour to the English flag, and for other international offences, etc. The right of possession of the regions in question can no longer be regarded as doubtful, since Portugal had set aside the general international axiom, that the claim for possession according to colonial usage can only be held valid when colonization is actually carried out to the furtherance of civilization and public safety. Portugal's assertion that the signatories of the Congo Act would be the right adjudicators of the question was denied, upon the ground that Portugal had delayed to make her claim valid when Nyassaland was declared to belong to the sphere of England's interests. On July 1st, 1889, the Under-secretary, Sir James Fergusson, in the Lower House, explained that the Portuguese Government had been informed that they would be held answerable for all loss which Englishmen might suffer by the annulling of the Delagoa railway convention. The same day Lord Salisbury informed the Upper House that the English Government would send three war-ships to Delagoa Bay, to be ready in case of need. Portugal's conduct was, in his opinion, unjustifiable.