The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 2 (of 2) / As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan

by Alexander Michie

IV. TIBET.

Lhassa visited by Babu Sarat Chandra Das—Proposed commercial expedition—Originated by Secretary of State—Envoy sent to Peking to obtain passport—Opposition organised by Chinese and Tibetans—Mission withdrawn.

The year 1885 witnessed the first act in the ill-advised policy—as to its method, not its object—of the Indian Government of opening commercial relations with Tibet. A learned Bengali pandit, versed in Tibetan, had made two successful visits to Lhassa, where he gained the friendship of the lamas, who invited him to come again. A fair prospect of opening commercial relations by gradually disarming prejudices and apprehension was thus presented. Having duly reported his experiences to the Government of India, the babu waited their pleasure as to further developments at Darjeeling, where he occupied the post of Government schoolmaster. An English civilian, making the acquaintance of the babu in that hot-weather retreat, conceived the idea of an official mission to Lhassa, in which the services of the babu might be utilised as guide and interpreter. The Indian Government was averse from the enterprise on economical if on no other grounds, but direct pressure being brought to bear on the India Office in London, the ambitious young statesman who then presided over its counsels is said to have espoused the proposal and overruled the reluctant Government of India.

Of the organisation and procedure of the mission nothing very complimentary can be said. Instead of following the line of least resistance, of driving in the thin end of the wedge, in accordance with the commonplace maxims consecrated by all human experience, the reverse process was followed in every single particular. Sarat Chandra Das had shown the way, and the entry he had effected could have been gradually widened by himself and others of his own class until the obstacles to free commercial intercourse had been overcome. The experience of a hundred years had shown to the world the invincible prejudices of the Tibetan rulers against foreign visitors. The babu had in his own person conquered these prejudices by his mastery of Buddhistic lore, as well as by his gentleness and consummate tact; but the mission, which had its origin in the information he supplied, discarded his methods and proceeded on military lines. Its personnel included politicals and scientists, but no commercial agent, and as Mr Gundry has well said, "The Under Secretary of State, while stating that the object of the mission was to confer with the Chinese commissioners and the Lhassa Government as to the resumption of commercial relations between India and Tibet," added in Parliament that, "looking to the delicate nature of the mission, it had not been thought advisable to appoint a special commercial representative." An armed force of some 300 men sent on a "delicate mission" which, though essentially commercial, yet had nothing commercial in its composition! Could anything be conceived more certain to arouse the sleeping suspicions of the Tibetans? It was but repeating on a larger scale the deplorable fiasco of Colonel Browne's attempted march from Burma to China in 1875.

The first act in this little drama was performed in Peking when the envoy, Macaulay, arrived with his staff for the ostensible purpose of applying for a passport for Tibet. For such a purpose there was no need to have sent a special messenger to Peking at all, as a passport could have been much more easily obtained by the British Minister there and transmitted by post in the ordinary course of business. The passport could not, of course, be refused in plain terms by the Chinese Government, but the personal demand for it gave them the opportunity of cross-examining the intended envoy as to the objects of his proposed mission. It may well be believed, from the self-contradictory explanation of the mission tendered to the British Parliament, that the envoy in Peking failed to allay the suspicions of the Chinese Government. On the contrary, his presence intensified them exceedingly. The sole effect of the preliminary expedition to Peking was, in fact, to forewarn the Chinese Government, so that they, in concert with the rulers of Tibet, should be prepared to interpose obstacles to the advance of the mission, but in such a way as not openly to compromise the good faith of the Chinese Government. The journey of the envoy to Peking, therefore, sealed the fate of his own mission, and at the same time closed Tibet against more judicious advances in the future.

The most interesting episode in connection with this abortive effort was the appearance of the Babu Sarat Chandra Das himself in the Chinese capital. By sheer force of intellect he succeeded in a few days in obtaining the confidence of the inner circle of the lamas there. Having been brought in contact with a certain Manchu official, the pandit showed very unobtrusively a familiarity with the more recondite tenets of Buddhism which captivated the Manchu, whose heart was set on improving his knowledge of the sacred mysteries.[24] The babu could speak no Chinese, but it was not difficult among the thousands of lamas in Peking to find a competent Tibetan interpreter. The fame of the pandit spread rapidly among the ranks of the priesthood, whose chiefs competed for the honour of sitting at the feet of the Indian Gamaliel. In expounding the doctrines, while enjoying the hospitality, of different groups of lamas, the popularity of the pandit grew from day to day, until he was at length constrained to take up his quarters at the great Yellow Temple, outside the north wall of Peking, and live with the brethren. They invested him with the yellow robe and the other ecclesiastical insignia, and treated him altogether as one of the initiated. It required all his acumen to prevent his status as a Buddhist lama from clashing with his position as a subordinate of the Indian envoy, on whom he was in attendance. He had to pay frequent visits to the British Legation, where it would have been impossible for him to appear in his religious vestments without exciting inconvenient gossip, and perhaps incurring the disapproval of his superior officer. The custom of travelling in Peking in closed carts enabled the babu to play the double part of Jekyll and Hyde with perfect success. He would leave the Temple as a lama, drive to a friend's rooms in the city, where his Indian costume was kept ready, in which he proceeded in another cab and in another character to the British Legation, returning to reassume his yellow robes and then repair to the Temple.

During the time when the envoy designate remained in Peking a very high personage arrived from Tibet, and it was on his conferences with the Chinese Court that the success of the intended mission depended. It would be presumptuous on the part of any foreigner to attempt to divine what passed between the delegate from the Grand Lama and the Chinese Ministers; but were it possible for any one to penetrate into those secret counsels, the babu was the man to do it. There is no doubt that he did. In fact, he had positive information that the Indian mission to Tibet would be stopped at the instance of the Chinese Government, and that the issue of the passport was an empty form. Such information would naturally be unwelcome to the envoy, and the sequel seems to show that the warning was disregarded. The expedition was organised, fully equipped, ready for a march into Tibet. Had it proceeded it is highly improbable that the babu would have accompanied it as interpreter, for he could not have exonerated himself from the imputation of bad faith towards his Tibetan hosts in acting as guide to an armed force into a country where he had been received and reinvited as a private guest.

What would have been the consequence of the mission proceeding into Tibet it is, of course, impossible to say, but the circumstances of its recall were not conducive to satisfactory relations between China and Great Britain. Mistrusting the effectiveness of the Tibetan opposition to the Indian mission—for the force could very likely have made good its passage to Lhassa—the Chinese Government resorted to diplomatic means of stopping its advance. Its never-failing emergency man, the Inspector-General of Customs, was called upon, and he intervened with the British Government with such good effect that they sent orders to India to stop the Tibetan mission. Thus the Indian Government was a second time overruled: first, in being made to organise the mission against its will; and secondly, in being forced to recall it when its recall involved immeasurable loss of influence in future dealings with China. An attempt was made to cover the retreat in a cloud of verbiage by a convention signed at Peking in 1886, which, however, only made the case worse, in that it was a retrograde step, virtually cancelling the right of visiting Tibet, which had been conferred by the Chefoo convention of ten years before. The same treaty which embodied this renunciation, perhaps the weakest to which any British representative ever set his name, also fostered the illusions which have been so detrimental to the welfare of China, by promising a continuance of the tribute missions from Burma after that country had become an integral part of the Indian Empire.

The fruits of this diplomatic surrender were not long in showing themselves, for it was soon followed by an invasion of British Sikkim from the Tibetan side. This aggression of the lamas was of necessity resisted by the Indian Government, and an unexpected opportunity was thus offered to them of settling the whole Tibetan question by the rapid march of a small force to Lhassa. There is good reason to believe that this solution of the difficulty was the one which commended itself to the practical statesmen and soldiers of India; but their action was paralysed by the orders of the Home Government, which continued to be ruled by influences which were neither military nor political nor practical. Discussions between the Indian Government and the Chinese amban or Resident at Lhassa, professing to speak for the Tibetan Lama Government, were protracted year after year, and seemed interminable. At last even the Chinese themselves grew weary of the comedy, and experienced in Tibet something of the difficulty which occasionally beset them in China—that is to say, they were unable to exorcise the demon they had invoked. They had stirred up the Tibetans to the point of obstructing the Macaulay mission, but seemed really to lose control of the force after it had been set in motion. After some years of futile talk the statesmen of China would perhaps have hailed with satisfaction the advance of a British force to Lhassa to cut the Gordian knot; but they dared not, of course, give such a hint as was conveyed to Captain Fournier, "Avancez donc,"[25] and the Indian Government, not having the wit to divine it, had to submit to a long-drawn-out and permanent humiliation, that was in no wise mended by the Calcutta convention of 1890, which, professing only to settle the existing frontiers, did not even settle them.