The San Francisco call., 1898-01-10
THWARTS ENGLAND
 IK cHERfSHED PLANS
 F0R SOUDAR CONTROL.
Quietly Advancing From Both East and West Frdnce Has Established Continuous Con-
 necton Across the Dark Continent.


 The situation in the Eastern Soudan as developed within the last few days rightly causes great concern through out the courts of Europe. The posi- ton is so delicate and the attitude of the representatives of both nations so determined that a chance contact even may cause the spark that will flare up the red flames of war between the two leading nations of Europe.
 In the struggle for territory in Africa, begun years ago, England has distanced all her rivals, though France has followed close on her heels as to the number of square miles.
 By the treaty of Berlin in 1884 all the coast line from Cape Blanco south and . around to Cape Guardafui was al- , lotted in nearly equal proportions to the. participating nations - England, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal leaving the questions of ''hinterland" and. spheres of influence" to be set tied between the nations having con- uguOus interests. Italy's African col OnizatiOn career was short and diSaS- trous. Portugal had by previous oc- cupation more litoral than any of the others, but has made no extension of consequence. Germany has been so cir cumstanced in the four quarters where she obtained sea frontage that great widening of influence was out of the question. With the English for neigh bOrs she has been badly beaten in the great grab game. The "schurtz- briefs" of the young German Emperor, so effectua1 when directed against weak and ignorant black princes who attempted to stay his progress, availed nothing against the greedy land -grabbers of Great Brit fv, @H H. 4, l y,,+k h. in London and questionable claims of ancient treaties with interior chief tains and the aggressive advance of :~ her explorers and traders, supported always by the ready presence of her ': :cQiOnial troops, England has managed to hold the hinterland spread of her :<neighbor within very meager bounds, :: while she forcibly gerrymandered the : map of South Africa until she claimed the greater part and the choicest of : the whole country
 $: The conditions were different, how Lever, to the north. Instead of the in 'sert Portuguese and slow non-c -coloniz- : ing, Germans she has had to meet and ~*settie hinterland questions with the j. French, with no mean experience in z colonial enterprises. These, with no 2. grand blast of trumpets and parade of : troops and ships, but quietly and : surely, from Algiers and Senegal on ;~ the north and west and the Kong . country and Dahomey on the Guinea coast. have completely shut within , small compass the British at Sierra Leone, Ashantee and the Lagos coun- try, and effectuated their title by oc- cupatiOn and administration of gov ernment over nearly the whole of 1 West Africa, including the large and : fertile and populous Upper Niger re- zion and the Central Soudan north of Sokoto.
 These acquisitions with French Congo have given France some two and a half million square miles of the whole eleven millions in Africa, against three mil lions of Great Britain, counting Egypt and Nubia-
 Two years ago there remained un- claimed by any European nation some thing less than one and half million square miles. which included a number Of small, independent states about Lake Tchad and between it and the Congo basin on the southeast, Abyssinia on the east and the Nile and Libyan Desert on the northeast, generally known as Central and Eastern Soudan.
 over the latter division, formerly ruled by Egypt, the Mahdi and his suc- cessor, Abdullah Khalifa, have exer- c1sed rule from Korasko to Lake Vic toria. From the defeat and death of Gordon at Khartoum in 1885, no O LLQiOpSdn HdS set loot the country except as a captive un- til within the last few weeks, when the French have carried their colors to Fashoda, on the White Nile, and most likely ere this, by an understanding with the Mahdi, have advanced them well on toward Khartoum, their ulti- mate goal.
 great coup detat has indeed been achieved.
 : :: From French Congo on the Atlantic as a base the active Gaul has deyeloped '-. the 'hinterland" proposition on the Congo and Central Soudan even more enectively in their own favor than in the. west, and given it a new meaning . In the ears of the over-confident Gov ernment in Downing street
 ,' Agreeing with Germany as to the i. eastern boundary of the Cameroon country up to Lake Tchad, which her : .Algerine hinterland touched on the north. thus checking British advance eastward from Sokoto, and with the friendly Beigians in the Congo State on the south, France has pushed her