difficulty, by proposing to advance a 3½ per cent. loan to Egypt on the security of the Domain lands,[195] or personal estate of the Khedive. The Powers did not receive this proposal cordially. Necessity, which knows no law, having compelled the Egyptian Government, with the sanction of England, to suspend for the moment the Sinking Fund of the Unified Debt, a distinct violation of the Liquidation Law, the Debt Commission prosecuted the Egyptian Government before the International Tribunals. They of course gave judgment in favour of the Commission. Germany and Russia at this juncture insisted on their representatives sharing all the rights and powers of the Debt Commission, indeed, Germany, irritated by the Foreign and Colonial policy of England, showed signs of supporting certain inconvenient claims to the Domain lands which the ex-Khedive, Ismail Pasha, put forward.[196] The coolness between Germany and England which marked the last half of 1884 arose out of what was at the time termed the “scramble for Africa.” The regions opened up by Mr. H. M. Stanley on the Congo had been practically occupied by an International Association, the head of which was the King of the Belgians. In fact, General Gordon was under an engagement to take up the government of this vast tract of land when he went to Khartoum. England, however, in order to exclude dangerous rivals, recognised the obsolete claims of Portugal to hold the outlet of the Congo; but, as Portuguese officials were alleged by commercial men to be obstructive and corrupt, this policy was not very popular. Germany, indeed, united the Powers in quashing it, and finally it was agreed that an International Conference should meet at Berlin to determine the conditions under which the outlet of the Congo should be controlled. But at this point Germany was sorely irritated by the provokingly vacillating policy of Lord Derby. There was a strip of territory, extending from Cape Colony to the Portuguese frontier on the Congo, in which a Bremen firm had established a trading settlement at Angra Pequena. They applied to Prince Bismarck for protection. He, in turn, asked Lord Granville if England claimed any sovereignty over this region (in which there was only a small British settlement at Walwich Bay), and whether the British Government could give the German traders the protection which they sought. Lord Kimberley, in his despatch to Sir Hercules Robinson of the 30th of December, had warned him that the Government refused to extend British jurisdiction north of the Orange River. But Lord Granville now told Prince Bismarck that, though English sovereignty had only been proclaimed formally at certain points along this coast, any encroachment on it by a foreign Power would be regarded by England as an encroachment on its rights. Again (31st of December, 1884) Prince Bismarck repeated his question--Did England propose to give the German traders protection,