The significance of the Treaty with King Leopold, as Sovereign
of the Congo State, recently signed by Sir Edward Grey, is well brought out in • an admirable article in Tues- day's Daily Chronicle. The British "sphere, of influence" on the Bahr-el-Gbazil is clearly recOgnised, but King Leopold continues to occupy the Lado Enclave during his reign. Afterwards it will revert to the Soudan. Government. The lease of a strip of territory connecting Lake Albert with the Congo frontier gives that State free access to the waters of the Nile; but it is pledged not to construct any works, except in agreement with the Soudan Government, which would diminish the volume of water entering the Nile. In return for these concessions the. Egyptian Government guarantees the interest on the capital required to construct a railway from the Nile near Lado to the Congo frontier, an open port is to be established at the rail- head on the Nile, and on the Upper Nile itself Belgian and' Congolese vessels are to have equal trading rights with British or Egyptian vessels. The Treaty is eminently satisfactory, because it not only removes the sources of local friction which' Lord Cromer had pointed out, but is the logical and essential' corollary to our paramountcy in Egypt. As the writer in the' Chronicle, following Herodotus, puts it, Egypt is "the gift of the Nile," and he who controls the head-waters controls the river.
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