In England we meet everywhere with the sharpest contrasts.
Whoever is aware of the great ignorance of public opinion in England about events in India, about the relations between those great possessions and the neighbouring States; whoever in the course of a year has noted down those absurd and ridiculous news, those telegraphic despatches in the English papers, which reach Europe and England through Bombay and Calcutta; whoever is aware of the very small number of English statesmen who are so carefully informed on Asiatic relations, that they can pass a sound judgement on questions of Eastern policy;—such a one must surely be amazed at the way in which Great Britain founded her foreign possessions, to say nothing of her being able to hold them until now.
And just as even those among the English public who have lived any time in India have kept aloof from the natives, in accordance with their national character, and are but seldom conversant with their language and manners,—so, too, can the English Government entrust to naturalized Levantines, and not to Englishmen, the Dragomanate, that necessary organ of mutual intercourse, in such important embassies as that, for instance, of Constantinople. While Russia, France and Austria, have long had Oriental academies for diplomatic beginners; in England, with her rich dower of colleges, schools, and universities, no one has ever thought of such an institution. And so again in the legislative body as well as in the ministry, where the smallest questions often have a special advocate, there are but very few men competent to discuss the important relations in Asia; and even these, on account of the prevailing nepotism, are but seldom allowed to turn their experiences to account.
This indifference must surprise all foreigners. Still more amazed will they be to hear men of the liberal party say: "What does Asia concern us; what the swarm of barbarous races that cause us more trouble than profit; what the wealth of India, whose income has long ceased to cover her expenditure, to say nothing about the costs of the conquest?" I have often heard remarks of this kind from the most famous leaders of this party. The sincerity of their confession defies questioning; and yet they have always left me without an answer, when I have asked them how they would make up for the loss of that political influence which springs from a great colonial empire. People seem wholly to forget that a large number of young Englishmen, of all ranks, are pursuing military and political careers in India; they seem to be unaware how many sons of clergymen and officers, to whom no sphere of action offers itself within their island home, earn wealth in lucrative offices on the Ganges and the Indus, with the view of spending at home in a calm old age the outcome of their earlier years. They seem to leave entirely out of their reckoning the enormous number of merchants dwelling in their great Asiatic dominions amidst the most extensive commercial interests, through whose hands English capital multiplies by millions. Those liberals are very short-sighted, who deem the possession of such a colony as India an indifferent or superfluous matter. That they should wish to see the greatness of their fatherland founded on the flourishing condition of inland manufactures, and not on their dominion over foreign peoples, can no longer be regarded as a view generally valid in England, now that more than sixty millions pounds sterling are laid out in Indian railway undertakings alone; for that neither manufacturing industry nor the enterprising spirit of English merchants can succeed, to any great extent, without the supporting hand of English rule, is amply shown by the circumstances of British trade in Algiers, Central Asia, and other non-British territories.
It is faulty views like these which neutralise all the advantages of English individualism in the presence of Russian policy, which always acts with steadfast consistency. To these errors may be ascribed the fact that Russia, having grown up into a powerful rival in a space of time incredibly short, is treading so close on the Achilles-heel of Great Britain. With the position she holds on the Aral and the Caspian Seas, after conquering the whole of the Caucasus, after her enormous successes in Central Asia, it would now be useless to try and force back that giant power. What might with no great trouble have been attained twenty years ago, it is now far too late to attempt; but if England would avoid the usual lot of commercial states,—the doom of Carthage, Venice, Genoa, Holland, and Portugal,—there is but one way left to her: a policy of stern watchfulness, a swift grasp of the measures still at her command.
5. Advice to England for the Purpose Of Averting the Danger.
To think of moving out in open hostility to the growing power of Russia, were now, on England's part, just as great an error as the strange inaction she has displayed for the last twenty-five years amidst all the occurrences beyond the Hindu-Kush. Russia will establish herself on the right bank of the Oxus, will absorb the three Khanats, and perhaps Chinese Tartary, will make everything Œzbeg to acknowledge her supremacy. That can no longer be prevented; but thus far and no farther should Englishmen allow their rivals to advance.
All that lies between the Oxus and the Indus should remain neutral territory. Through her physical conformation, through the warlike character of her inhabitants, and specially through their great aptitude for diplomacy, Afghanistan would be altogether suited to form a military and political barrier against any possible collision between the two giants. That country would cost the conqueror, coming whether from North or South, a tenfold harder struggle than did the Caucasus. Besides, the possession would not for a long while make good the material advantage of an expensive war; and although the continual disorders that prevail in the mountain-home of the Afghans may be of no advantage to either neighbour, still the danger is not so great as to justify any schemes of conquest on one side or the other.
How, then, in case Russia continues her policy of aggression, may England secure the neutrality of Afghanistan? What must she do to set up with her influence there a solid barrier, without coming forward as a conqueror?
That is the work of a skilled diplomatic intercourse, the work of an uninterrupted alliance, carried on by agents, who, acquainted with the Afghan character, and eschewing English modes of thought, can conduct themselves as Asiatics.