When Rosebery became Prime Minister he interested himself primarily in foreign affairs as before, and ministers went their own way as well.111 Harcourt, the main spokesman of the Liberal Government in the House of Commons since Gladstone’s resignation, was still insistent in his opposition to Roseberianism.112 The announcement of a protectorate over Uganda was now viewed as a bomb that would blow up the cabinet. Rosebery seemed to be worried about a ministerial crisis, but not hesitant about carrying out his plan. On 17 June 1894 the Prime Minister drafted a memorandum declaring ‘the Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile,’ and he was fully prepared (and more devoted than his Foreign Secretary was) to exact a recognition of this principle by the Great Powers. A closer union of Uganda with the British Empire was clearly suggested herein. While on the other hand, Harcourt began to show a defeatist attitude on the subject of Uganda, expecting the triumph for Rosebery to
106 Cab37/32/38, Rosebery’s memorandum, 3 Nov. 1892.
107 It was feared that extending the jurisdiction of the Sultan of Zanzibar over Uganda would place the country under the operation of Mohammedan law and promote slavery in East Africa. BL, Add. MSS.
43915, f.131, Lugard to C. W. Dilke, 1 Dec. 1893. Also cf. The Annual Register, 1893 (London:
Longmans, Green & Co., 1893), 449.
108 The Times, 7 Nov. 1892, ‘The Uganda Question’, 9c. For public resolutions in favour of the retention of Uganda, see PRO, FO84/2192.
109 Lugard published The Rise of Our East African Empire (2 vols.) in 1893 as an effort to enhance annexationism. Under the auspices of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, Notes on Uganda and Memorandum on the War in Uganda, 1892 were issued before the publication of Portal’s report to strengthen the retentionist cause. And by the end of the year the IBEA’s apologia British East Africa or IBEA, compiled by its secretary P. L. McDermott, appeared.
110 For an outspoken illustration see The Punch, 21 April 1894, ‘The Black Baby’.
111 For further see Jeffrey Butler, The Liberal Party and the Jameson Raid (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968), 26.
112 Kimberley, the new Foreign Secretary, once complained to Lord Dufferin, the ambassador to France: ‘Harcourt insists, very naturally, in having his finger in the pie. It is not the same as it was when Rosebery was at the Foreign Office. He is very difficult to get on with.’ Kimberley to Dufferin, 3 July 1894, quoted in C. J. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists: British Foreign Policy 1878-1902 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967), vol. I, 184-85.
come to end the entire quarrel.113
In the Rosebery Government Harcourt was considerably isolated and ill-informed in regard of foreign policy. On 22 April 1894 Harcourt registered a protest, accusing the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister of transacting foreign affairs in the House of Lords and of guarding against his intervention in them.114 He complained particularly that he was kept ignorant of the views of the Foreign Office upon the Uganda question. Kimberly was forced to admit that a clear understanding of the cabinet as to the Uganda policy was wanting and could not possibly be achieved.115 As no one now talked about clearing out of Uganda, Harcourt was naturally left in the dark when technical details were discussed between Kimberley and Rosebery for taking the country under British protection. After all, Harcourt acquiesced without making much difficulty, comforting himself that he might be allowed to proceed with his domestic reforms.
On 4 February 1894 Major Douglas Owen, sent out to counteract Belgian expeditions along the Nile, reached the river from Uganda and raised the British flag at Wadelai. Three weeks later, Rosebery demanded a protectorate over Uganda for the first time in his memorandum of 25 February. On 22 March the retention of Uganda was formally determined by the cabinet. On 10 April – a month after Rosebery had become Prime Minister – the Portal Report was presented to Parliament, and two days later Rosebery announced that the Government had decided on annexation.116 The declaration was agreed upon without difficult, and the protectorate was, so to speak, ratified. The Government formally proclaimed a protectorate over Uganda on 18 June, under and by virtue of the agreement between Portal and King Mwanga on 29 May 1893.117 A year later, on 15 June 1895, the Government established another protectorate covering all the territories in East Africa under the influence of Britain, lying between Uganda and the coast, and between the River Juba and the northern frontier of the German sphere.118
113 Harcourt was quoted as saying: ‘I Hope to God it will be so; and then there will be an end to the whole thing.’ Hamilton diary, 7 April 1894, in David Brooks, op. cit., 131. Also cf. Rosebery to Victoria, 7 April 1894, in G. E. Buckle, op. cit., 389. With Harcourt giving in, Rosebery was able to happily record in early 1895 an improvement in his relationship with the leader of the radicals. See BL, Add. MSS. 48612B, f.34, Rosebery to E. Hamilton, 22 March 1895.
114 A complication arose in March 1894 over the proposal to transfer to King Leopold II of Belgium (and Congo) British sphere of influence of the Upper Nile on a long lease. Rosebery at first did not desire to inform Harcourt of these negotiations, but was later persuaded by Kimberley of the necessity of doing so. Lord Crewe, op. cit., 447-48. A similar situation developed a year later when it was proposed to appoint a committee of experts to consider the Uganda railway. Kimberley to Rosebery, 31 March 1895, in John Powell, op. cit., 230.
115 Kimberley to Rosebery, 15 May 1894, in Powell, op. cit., 221.
116 Hansard, 4th S., vol. 23, ‘Uganda’, 12 April 1894, Lord Rosebery (House of Lords), p. 181. The same announcement was made by Harcourt, much embarrassed, at the same time in the House of Commons. Ibid., 223.
117 See The London Gazette, 19 June 1894; The Dublin Gazette, 22 June 1894; or The Times, 20 June 1894, 13d. This protectorate comprised the territory known as Uganda proper, bounded by the territories known as Usoga, Unyoro, Ankoli and Koki. E. J. L. Berkeley was appointed British Commissioner and Consul General for the protectorate of Uganda and the adjoining territories. The charter and concessions of the IBEA were to form the subject of future discussion, as between the Government and the company, and between the company and the Sultan of Zanzibar, respectively; but they would be dealt with as a whole. See Parliamentary Papers, 1895 LXXI, Africa No. 4 [C.7647],
‘Correspondence Respecting the Retirement of the IBEA’, presented to Parliament in April 1895.
118 See British and Foreign State Papers, 1894-1895, vol. 87 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1900), ‘Notification of the Establishment of a British Protectorate over Certain Territories in East Africa’, 15 June 1895, p. 1036.
Although Portal laid down in express terms the importance of making a railway to Uganda, the subject remained one of great complexity from many points of view.
The failure of the Government to follow up a policy of railway construction in Uganda was the reason why the IBEA was unable to continue to hold the country.
This was one of the few IBEA’s complaints that had been justified by both the Liberal and Conservative governments.119 But in Rosebery’s opinion, the Uganda railway was not a work of primary necessity as a matter of imperial policy; and, perhaps in order to placate the anti-annexationists, he was pledged in 1892 against the immediate commencement of the railway if the Government decided to retain Uganda.120 Rosebery also thought that the cost for the railway was goo great, and that for Britain’s purpose a road from the coast and/or a line of telegraph would be sufficient for the time being. But he generally recognized the importance of the projected Mombasa railway in imperial terms, and was ready to be forced by public opinion to build the ‘political railway.’121 When the cabinet determined on the retention of Uganda on 22 March 1894, they left the question of the railway in abeyance.
Rosebery did not press this point apparently in view of financial difficulties and, more importantly, some of his colleagues’ opposition. And he withheld that subject in his official announcement of the Uganda protectorate on 12 April. However, the Prime Minister became more decided with time to construct the line, as he began to leave out the problem of finance involved. In early 1895 Rosebery explained himself by saying that the railway project was suspended not because the Treasury objected to it, but because the Government had to ‘weigh wisely the pros and cons of this transition period of the Protectorate of Uganda before constructing the railway.’122 In the following months more acute differences manifested themselves as regards the Uganda railway, but Rosebery was more determined than before to push ahead with the project. The cabinet on 28 May almost unanimously (with one resignation threatened) agreed to declare forthwith the commencement of the railway work. The
‘Little Englanders’ had finally been overruled.
The dominance of Rosebery led not only to the annexation of Uganda but to the proclamation of British hegemony over the Sudan. On 28 March 1895 Edward Grey made a speech in the House of Commons on the whole question of the Nile Valley without Harcourt’s presence and previous knowledge. Grey announced that the British Government could lay claim to the whole of the Nile waterway, and suggested that the current French expedition on the way to the Upper Nile was regarded by Britain as
‘an unfriendly act.’ Harcourt immediately protested to Kimberley over his Under-Secretary’s declaration,123 while at the same time Rosebery called the Queen’s
119 PRO, FO2/96/14, Report of the Court of Directors to the Shareholders, IBEA, 11 Jan. 1895. It was agreed that had the measures contemplated by the Salisbury Government been adhered to, the railway guarantee alone would have been required from Parliament, as the company could thereon have raised funds as necessary.
120 PRO, Cab37/31//23, Rosebery’s memorandum, 16 Sept. 1892; and FO403/173/188, Rosebery’s memorandum, 17 Nov. 1892. Also cf. FO403/193/116, Rosebery’s memorandum, 12 Feb. 1894.
121 W. S. Churchill, My African Journal (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908), 6.
122 Hansard, 4th S., vol. 30, ‘Uganda’, 14 Feb. 1895, Rosebery, p. 705.
123 Harcourt to Kimberley, 29 March 1895, in A. G. Gardiner, op. cit., 335. Harcourt wrote: ‘These declarations appear to me not consistent with the conclusions arrived at by the Cabinet in more than one discussion on the subject… You will remember that the Cabinet struck out of one of the despatches words to the effect that the English Government would regard the advance of the French on the Nile as a ‘ very grave matter.’ And he wrote to Kimberley two days later to demonstrate his strong feeling: ‘I will also in future undertake to make, on behalf of the Cabinet, all important statements in debate on foreign affairs. It is in this manner alone that the position of the Leader of the House of Commons can
attention to Grey’s ‘admirable statement.’ When Harcourt was fighting for his right to speak on behalf of the Government on foreign affairs, Rosebery told Victoria that
‘though there was some grumbling in the usual quarters, there was not attempt to disavow Sir E. Grey’s position.’124 Up to this point, the victory of Roseberianism was all but nominal.