A correspondent of the Telegraph reports a conversation at Vienna
with a statesman of mark, who believes that the most
serious subject of discussion at the coming Conference at Berlin will be the method of legalising annexations made in savage or semi- savage countries. Hitherto, the rule has been that if a Euro- pean Power raised its flag on unoccupied territory, or territory not recognised as within the international system, all other European Powers were debarred from objecting. England, for instance, acquired New Zealand in this way, the English captain authorised to annex having been raced for much of the distance by a French captain on the same errand. Prince Bismarck, it is said, wants more formalities, a wish to which he may obtain assent. We are glutted with savage territory ; the French are intent on acquisitions through conquest ; and the Russians do not care for annexations not touching their own border. The most reasonable formality would be a regular notification to the European Powers, with as accurate a definition of boundaries as the state of knowledge will allow. At the present rate of acquisition, however, the question will speedily settle itself, for everybody is snapping up " unoccupied " bits of the world so fast that in a year or two there will be none left. Within ten years we have absorbed the Fiji Islands, Socotra, North Borneo, New Guinea, and a few hundred miles of West Africa; the French have taken or claimed Tunis, Tonquin, Madagascar, and a few hundred miles of West Africa; and the Germans are now biting away at West Africa, too. It is extension, not settlement, for which it is now needful to provide laws.
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