NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE details of an Anglo-German agreement as to the dis- tribution of East Africa were officially published on Tuesday both in Berlin and London. The document is not yet formally perfect, as it requires the previous assent of the British Parliament, and perhaps a ratification from public opinion in both countries. The latter, however, it is clear, will be accorded, and the former, after the talk now customary, will not be withheld. The lines of the agreement are, in the main, identical with those published in the St. James's Gazette of last week ; but one secret has been carefully kept. Heligo- land has been exchanged for Zanzibar, with the consent of the Sultan, and if the agreement is ratified, the African island passes thenceforward under the sole protectorate of Great Britain. We have tried to explain the great advantages of this arrangement elsewhere, and need only remark here that henceforward the British possessions in South and East Africa are split into two " Dominions," the German terri- tory dividing them, and reaching from the ocean to the Congo State. Each of these British Dominions, however, is of vast extent, South Africa in particular stretching from Cape Town to Lake Tanganyika, a distance of nearly two thousand miles, and covering a sort of world, in which great kingdoms might be lost. East Africa is not so large, but it includes Zanzibar, the key of the coast, and stretches from Mombassa over the northern shore of the Victoria Nyanza, including the Kingdom of Uganda—seventy thousand square miles—the Albert Nyanza, and the country around the head-waters of the Nile. Witu is ceded to us, and with it the control of the Somali country. In short, we come out of the scrimmage with our hands a little too full.
