In a statement in the House of Commons, the Rodd mission was described as being sent to Ethiopia: 'to assure King Menelik of our friendly intentions, to endeavour to promote amicable political and commercial relations, and to settle certain questions which had arisen between the British authorities on the Somali Coast and the Abyssinian governor of Harar'. Although the wider aims of the Mission were to reassure Menelik as to Britain's interests in the context of Anglo-French rivalry on the Nile, and to secure at least Ethiopian neutrality in the war against the Khalifa in the Sudan, the settlement of the British Protectorate's frontiers was described as one of the principal objects of the negotiations. However, the actual terms in which the Protectorate's frontiers were to be defined and the concessions which might have to be made were of relatively minor importance if Rodd could succeed in establishing friendly relations with Ethiopia. Britain was not prepared to defend the 1894 frontiers if this would entail any considerable expenditure: indeed the possibility of abandoning the Somaliland Protectorate altogether had already been raised.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 183