Note 98 — Chapter VI · THE DUTCH IN AFRICA

This Delagoa Bay railway was made by a group of British and American concessionaires, headed by Colonel Edward McMurdo, an American, between 1887 and 1889. In the following year it was arbitrarily seized by the Portuguese Government on an unfair quibble. The Portuguese then completed the line farther inland until it joined the Netherlands Railway Co.’s line to Pretoria, thus giving the South African Republic a means of access to the sea independent of British control. The wrong inflicted on the Delagoa Bay Railway Company went to arbitration in Switzerland, 1889; and the case was decided after 11 years’ deliberations in favour of the Company, to whom the Portuguese paid £978,000 in compensation.