“(1.) It has been considered indispensable that the two fortified frontier lines, the one stretching from China to Lake Issik-Kul, the other from the Sea of Aral along the lower course of the Sir Daryā, should be linked together by a chain of strongholds, so that each fort should be in a position to afford mutual support and leave no space open to the incursions of nomad tribes.
“(2.) It was essential that the line of forts thus completed should be placed in a fertile country, not only in order to assure supplies, but to facilitate regular colonisation, which alone can give an occupied country a future of stability and prosperity, or attract neighbouring tribes to civilised life.
“(3.) It was a matter of urgency to fix this line in a definite manner, in order to escape the danger of being drawn on from repression to reprisals, which might end in a limitless extension of our empire.
“With this object it was necessary to lay the foundations of a system founded not merely on considerations of expediency, but on geographical and political data which are fixed and permanent.
“This system was disclosed to us by a very simple fact, the result of long experience, namely, that nomad tribes which cannot be overtaken, punished, or kept in hand are the worst neighbours possible; while agricultural and commercial populations, wedded to the soil, and given a more highly developed social organisation, afford for us a basis for friendly relations which may become all that can be wished.
“Our frontier-line then should include the first, and stop at the boundaries of the second.
“These three principles afford a clear, natural, and logical explanation of the recent military operations accomplished in Central Asia.
“Moreover, our old frontier, stretching along the Sir Daryā to Fort Perovski on one side, and, on the other, as far as Lake Issik-Kul, had the disadvantage of being almost at the edge of the desert. It was interrupted by an immense gap between the farthest points on the east and west. It offered very insufficient supplies to our troops, and left beyond it unsettled tribes with which we could not maintain stable relations.
“In spite of our repugnance to give a wider scope to our dominion, these conditions were powerful enough to induce the Imperial Government to establish a frontier between Lake Issik-Kul and the Sir Daryā by fortifying the town of Chimkent, recently occupied by us. In adopting this line we obtain a twofold result. First, the country which it includes is fertile, well-wooded, and watered by numerous streams; it is inhabited in part by Kirghiz tribes which have already acknowledged our supremacy, and therefore offers conditions favourable to colonisation and the supply of our garrisons. Then, it gives us the agricultural and commercial population of Kokand as our neighbours.
“Thus we find ourselves confronted by a more solid and compact social organisation,—one less shifting and better arranged. This consideration marks with geographical precision the limit where interest and reason command us to stop. On the one hand, attempts to extend our rule will no longer encounter such unstable entities as nomad tribes, but more regularly organised states, and will therefore be carried out at the cost of great effort, leading us from annexation to annexation into difficulties the end of which can not be foreseen. On the other hand, as we have as our neighbours states of that description, in spite of their low civilisation and nebulous political development, we hope that regular relations may one day, in our common interest, replace the chronic disorders which have hitherto hampered their progress.